The legends and traditions of a northern county

Himtteb Ittterre&s Cbttton

This edition of The Legends and Traditions of a
Northern County is limited to 600 copies, printed
from type, and the type distributed.

THE LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS

OF A

NORTHERN COUNTY

THE
LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS

OF A

NORTHERN COUNTY

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

COOPERSTOWN, MAY, 1920

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Cbe fmlcfterbocfcet ptesa

1821

Copyright, 1921

by
James Fcnimore Cooper

Printed in the United States of America

THESE SKETCHES
ARE DEDICATED TO

MY FOUR SONS

IN MEMORY OF MANY

HAPPY DAYS SPENT WITH THEM

IN

"OLD OTSEGO"

FOREWORD

THIS is not a history nor, strictly speaking, merely
Legends and Traditions ; it is less than the former and
perhaps more than the latter. The facts are correctly
stated where given, the anecdotes and legends are
repeated as told to me by members of an older genera-
tion, and my own experience and impressions are truly
set forth.

The whole was written with the hope of preserving
for future generations of my family the life and the
thoughts of people living under conditions which are
gone forever, and of creating in the minds of its readers
the atmosphere in which they lived, struggled, died, and
were buried.

It is written in compliance with repeated requests
of my four sons, in fulfillment of my promise to each
of them, and with the hope that it may foster in those
of my descendants who may read it a love of the beau-
tiful country with which their ancestors have been so
closely associated for generations. If it does this, and
perhaps induces them to familiarize themselves to a
greater extent with the history of the town and county
and State, I shall feel that it is well done.

J. F. C.

COOPERSTOWN,

May, 1920

vii

AN INTRODUCTION

IN 1612, three years after Hendrick Hudson came to
Albany, and eight years before the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth Rock, two Dutch explorers came up the
Mohawk from Albany (Fort Orange), crossed over the
hills to Otsego Lake, and went down the Susquehanna
Valley. They undoubtedly stopped at the Indian
village which then occupied the site of Cooperstown,
and were the first white men known to visit this coun-
try. They filed a map of their wanderings in Amster-
dam, where it was found a few years ago.

Probably an occasional white man, priest or trader,
visited Otsego Lake during the next century, but no
settlement was attempted until Rev. John Christopher
Hartwick, a Lutheran minister, thinking the lake was
on his patent, started one about 1761. He abandoned
it on finding that his line ran a mile or two further south.
A little later, in 1770, came George Croghan, Sir Wm.
Johnson's successor as Indian agent, and one of the
patentees of the tract of 109,000 acres on which the
lake and town are situated, and built a log house and
outbuildings, and lived here with his family until just
before the Revolution.

x &n Sntrotiuction

During the war the red Indians under Brant and the
more brutal blue-eyed ones under Butler made this lonely
spot unsafe for settlers, and it was abandoned to the
wilderness.

In 1779 Gen. Clinton with his troops, on their ex-
pedition to punish the Six Nations, camped here for
several weeks, built a dam at the source of the Susque-
hanna, broke it, and went down on the flood.

Again the wilderness closed in on the vestiges of the
settlement, until, in 1785, William Cooper arrived on
horseback with his gun and fishing rod. He camped on
the spot, returned to his home in Burling ton, and bought
about 50,000 acres, including the present village site.
The next year he started a settlement and a few years
later brought his family and servants from Burlington,
N. J., and lived here until his death in 1809.

The town, known first as "Foot of the Lake," then
as ' 'Cooper ton, " and "Coopers Town, " and for a short
period as "Otsego," finally settled down to the "Coopers-
town" of to-day.

CONTENTS

PAGE

AN INTRODUCTION ix

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS ... 3

LOCAL NOMENCLATURE 17

THE FOUR CORNERS 28

GHOSTS— OURS AND OTHERS .... 40

A GRAVEYARD ROMANCE — A TRAGEDY AND A SCANDAL 6 1

SOME ABANDONED HOUSES 78

THE RED — THE BLACK — AND THE WHITE MAN . 88

A GREAT HIGHWAY 113

A LOST ATMOSPHERE 121

SOME OLD LETTERS 136

TODDSVILLE 195

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 201

OTSEGO HALL 223

INTRODUCTION TO A GUIDE IN THE WILDERNESS . 233

NOTES

WILLIAM COOPER 247

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON 257

"TANGIER" SMITH 259

THE LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS

OF A

NORTHERN COUNTY

Heoenbs anb TTrabitions of
H IRortbern County

EARLY SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS

THE Colony of New York was unlike any of the other
colonies and states in the manner of its early settlement
and the character of its land holdings.

When the Dutch West Indies Company began the
settlement of the vast territory, which eventually
shrank to the Colony of New York, it conveyed great
tracts of land to patroons, who had to furnish a certain
number of settlers to make good their title. Within
the limits of their grants these patroons had great and
autocratic powers.

When the English took over the colony all these
grants were confirmed and eventually erected into
manors. For years the English continued to grant
great tracts of land as manors. In this way Long
Island, Westchester County, and the Hudson Valley
to a point above Troy were settled.

The difference between ordinary grants of land,

3

4 Hegente of a ^tortfjetn Countp

such as were made later in the Colony of New York and
in other colonies, and manorial grants was legally a
technical but in reality a very real one. The Lord of the
Manor had autocratic power over his tenants within
the Manor; he held courts, civil and criminal; he could
punish his tenants as he had "The high justice, the
middle justice and the low." In fact, generally speak-
ing, he stood between his tenantry and the colonial or
home government. Since the I3th century, there
have been no manors erected in England. There were
no others in this country except a few small ones in
Maryland and one doubtful one in New England, and
perhaps one or two in the south.

The grantees or lords of these manors built their
manor houses and lived in royal style on their domains,
surrounded by their tenantry. In this way there grew
up in the Colony of New York a great landed aristoc-
racy which had no equal anywhere else in this country.
Some of the manors were enormous. Tangier Smith's
Manor of St. George was originally fifty miles wide on
the ocean and sound and of that width across Long
Island.

The Van Rensselaer Manor at Albany was twenty-
four miles on either side of the Hudson and forty-eight
miles east and west. The Patroon had a fort on Baeren
Island at the beginning of his lands and made every
boat which went up or down the Hudson salute his flag.

Carlp Settlement* anb Settler* 5

There was an attempt to create a manor in the lower
Mohawk Valley, but its immense size caused such an
outcry that it was abandoned, and no more were
created. I think that, all told, there were twelve
manors in the State, and one great patroonship never
erected into a manor. Later lands were granted
in great tracts but without manorial rights in the
patentees. The land grants followed the important
streams first and then filled in the less valuable land
lying away from the navigable waters.

Among these patents were those about Coopers-
town. The great Croghan or Cooper Patent (1769) con-
tained one hundred thousand acres and nine thousand
additional for roads. It ran from about the point
where the Oaks Creek joins the Susquehanna up along
the west bank of the river to Otsego Lake; along the
entire west shore of the lake to where the little stream
which runs in front of Swanswick empties into the lake ;
then a long arm ran off toward Springfield Center and back
and the line ran west crossing Sehuyler's Lake, and
thence west beyond Whar ton's Creek and down to a
line running west from the village of Mt. Vision and
south of Gilbert Lake; then back to above the Village
of Hartwick and off east to the place of beginning.

Judge Cooper had about forty-five or fifty thousand
acres of it in all; but immediately parted with about
fifteen hundred.

6 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

In our neighborhood there were also the Miller
Patent, upon which Fynmere stands, of thirty thousand
acres; a part of this, I think about ten thousand acres,
came to the Bowers family ; the Hartwick Patent, south
of the Cooper (1761), containing twenty-one thousand
five hundred acres; the Springfield Patent, upon which
Hyde Hall stands, with eighteen thousand acres; the
Butler Patent of forty-seven thousand; the Otego,
with sixty-nine thousand and the Morris with thirty-
three thousand. In all of these, with the possible ex-
ception of the Miller and Morris, Judge Cooper was
heavily interested.

Some purchasers took large tracts out of these
patents, and they were the ones who, with the paten-
tees, built the great houses which are scattered over
the countryside. It was from the owners of these
vast tracts of land that the villages took their names :
Cooperstown, Morris, Gilbert sville, and Sangerfield got
their names in this way.

Of one of the patents on the Susquehanna an interest-
ing story is told. Before the Colony would grant any
land, the would-be purchaser had to acquire the Indian
title. The tale runs that among Sir William Johnson's
Indian guests at dinner one day was Red Jacket, a
famous Seneca Chief. Sir William happened to
be wearing a new uniform just received from Eng-
land; Red Jacket eyed it enviously and the next

Carlp Settlement* anb Settler* 7

morning said to Sir William: "Quider, I dreamed a
dream last night." Sir William asked, with sinking
heart, "And what did you dream?" "I dreamed that
you gave me that red coat you wore yesterday." Sir
William well knowing Indian etiquette, passed over
the uniform and Red Jacket went away proud and
happy.

In the fall Sir William made his usual annual trip
among the Indian villages and spent a night with Red
Jacket. In the morning he said, "Red Jacket, I
dreamed a dream last night." Poor Red Jacket asked
him what he had dreamed, and Sir William replied:
"I dreamed that you gave me thirty thousand acres of
land." Red Jacket said nothing, but looked solemn
and no doubt considered the price high for the "Red
Coat." However, in due time he arrived at Mount
Johnson with an Indian deed for 30,000 acres of land
which he handed to Sir William with the remark:
"Quider, do not dream again."

The facts were forgotten, and the story was con-
sidered a pretty legend of Indian customs, until there
was found, in the Otsego County Clerk's office, the
deed of a lot of land, described as being "In Sir William
Johnson's Dreamland Tract." This located the land
as lying along the Susquehanna not far from Unadilla.

There was one celebrated settlement planned, but
never made, on the banks of the Susquehanna ; in 1794

8 Hesenb* of a JBtortijern Count?

Coleridge and Southey, at Oxford, organized the
' ' Pantisocracy , " which was to found a Utopia on "the
banks of that river in America with the beauti-
ful name — Susquehanna." Robert Lovell joined the
Pantisocrats and the plan was developed. They found
three enthusiastic maidens willing to venture to the
Susquehanna; Coleridge and Lovell married two of
them and Southey became engaged to the third.

The men were to till the soil and write; the women
were to care for the homes and the children; and all
were to converse. Everything was arranged for ex-
cept the necessary money. To raise this Coleridge
and Southey lectured and wrote. Unfortunately the
scheme never materialized and the banks of the Sus-
quehanna only benefitted to the extent of having a
small club named for the "Pantisocrats" over a century
later.

Other legends cling to the river, and other settlements
grew up; some of them commercial only like Phoenix;
some educational like Hartwick Seminary, founded by
John Christopher Hartwick, the Lutheran minister, in
the early iQth century and still prosperous; and some
like Unadilla beautiful only, alike in name and location.

There is a story about a settlement at or near Una-
dilla which illustrates the rough and ready life of the
days when this country was new. They were the times
when virile men lived and struggled, drank, fought, and

(Earlp Settlement* anb Settler* 9

died young, crowding the activities of a long life into
a short one.

One day, years ago, I met, gossiping with the two
artists P and T , whose story I have told else-
where, a third old man. When my name was men-
tioned, he laughed and said, "We ought to be friends
as my grandfather knew Judge Cooper and once threw
him in a wrestling match." Of course I was interested
and he told me the following tale : He came from Una-
dilla and his people had been among the early settlers
there. The land they lived on and were cutting out of
the wilderness, either belonged to Judge Cooper or he
was agent for it. There came a bad year; the crops
failed and the settlers could not meet their payments
of rent or the installments on account of the purchase
of the land. A public meeting was called and, as the
result, one of them was chosen to go to Cooperstown and
present their cause to Judge Cooper. The delegate
was my informant's grandfather. He started on the
long, sixty-mile trip to Cooperstown, while the settlers
anxiously waited. He found Judge Cooper at home
and stated his case, no doubt eloquently, for when he
had finished the Judge said: "You think you are some-
thing of an athlete, I think the same of myself, suppose
we try a wrestling bout ; if I throw you, your clients must
find a way to pay ; if , on the other hand, you throw me, I
will give you a receipt in full for the whole settlement."

io Hegenfc* of a Jlortfjent Count?

The bargain was struck, the furniture moved aside,
and the wrestlers closed with one another.

The Lord was with the suffering settlers and their
champion smote the Judge hip and thigh and laid him
on his back on the library floor. True to his word, he
wrote out the receipt and the champion returned tri-
umphant to his anxious neighbors. There is no record
of what this fall cost Judge Cooper.

From this and other anecdotes one can understand
why he was such a popular and successful maker of
settlements.

Within the limits of the so-called Cooper Patent are,
besides the Village of Cooperstown, Fly Creek, Summit,
Toddsville, Bourne, Oaksville, Schuylers Lake, Patent,
Snowden, Burlington Green, Burlington Flats, West
Burlington, Hell Town, Garretsville, New Lisbon,
Welcome, Lena, Wharton, Edmeston, Lows Mills, and
Fall Bridge.

Lows Mills, one of the oldest settlements on the
Patent, was made where Swanswick now stands and
the little pond in front of it is the old mill pond.

The actual earliest settlement, with the exception
of Hartwick's mistaken beginning on the Lake, was
George Croghan's at Cooperstown; but this was aban-
doned just before the Revolutionary War, although
one at least of the buildings was standing when William
Cooper came in 1785.

ibettlentente anb feettler* n

The following is a verbatim copy of the earliest letter
which I know of from a settler on the lake. Where the
writer was living, I do not know, but think that it
must have been somewhere near the locality of what
was later called Lows Mills. If Mr. Hicks had been
half as ingenious in other ways as he was in misspelling,
his fame would have lived until to-day and his home in
1773 would now be known to all.

Lake Otsago October 3th 1773
SIR

I imbrace this opertunity to lett you know that my
Family is in good helth & wish these lins will find you &
your Lady in the same we hed the new by a chance news
paper which plesed mutch & we all wish you joy/ the
Settlement gos on flourishing "will soon becom a fine
Countrey/ Year is a grate maney welthy men is willing
to become Settlers as soon as they can know the seling price
of the Land/ the Settlers at the Butternuts hath made a
good opening & as taken som of thir Fameies out this Sum-
mer/ I have sold my Land at the Butter nuts & am going
to settel at the Adgo manesty ware with me all winter &
provednot with Folewhich I amsorrey for/ Nathenel Edwards
as had him at the Adego all this sumor/ Thomas Wise will
Inform you how af airs goe on hear/ I have a mind to com
down my self if my Busnis will permit/ I have had verey
bad luck this Sumor with my Cattel I have lost i Cow &
4 Calve & i Horse/ my Crop of wheat & my Ry Sufferd
verey mutch by a hale storm/ the stons of which ware
Seven Inches Round but Hope with the help of Providence
I shall make out til my next Crop corns in/ Sir if I can be
of aney sarvis to you in this part of the worls I shall be

12 Hejjenfcg of a JBtortfjern County

verey Redy to Sarve you to the utmost of my Power/ Hear
is a better understanding betwen us that came up first to
what it wars wen we first com hear but I have Sufferd
verey mutch in my Carecter & Pocket/ but I hope you are
all convincd of what as been said to be false/ my Wife is
verey well satsified hear & Rembers hir Kind Respeck to
your Spous & all your f amely so I remain your

Humbel Sarvant

JOHN HICKS.

N.B. Thomas Wise as been at work this two Sommers
for Nathenel Edwards ware to hve Land Cleared by this
fawl according to agreement but Thomas Seeing no likley-
wood of his performing his promis thought of aplying to
you to help him forward pray dont let Nahanel now I have
mentend aney thing concarning him for I want now ill
blood.

One cannot help feeling grateful that the "hale
stones" have not grown in the past hundred and fifty
years.

The great patent as appears on the old maps was
eventually subdivided among the following owners:—
C. P. Low 7,500 (Prevost and Gary), V. P. Dow 12,000,
C. Golden 14,000, Vanveeler & Lansing 1,500, G. Bowne
1,500, Verree 1,500, J. Lonston 1,500, E. Wells 9,000,
R. Smith 4,000, H. Hill 2,000, John Cox and daughter
6,000, Susanna Dilwing 6,000. The balance came to
Judge Cooper and Andrew Craig, of which 1,500 acres
went to one Ellis. Cooper bought out Craig in 1798.
Susanna Dilwing and Hill called their tract Bloomfield

Settlements anti Settlers 13

after a governor of Pennsylvania. Eighteen thousand
acres of the Butler patent was known as Hillington after
its owner, one H. Hill.

This is Mohawk country and the Indians who lived at
or near the foot of the lake belonged to that tribe, the
fiercest and perhaps the greatest of North American
Indians. They kept the eastern door of the Long
House of the Six Nations. Hendrick and Brant were
chiefs of the tribe. Over Hannah's Hill ran one of their
war trails to the south which quite recently could be ea sily
followed. It was about eight inches wide and six deep,
worn by innumerable moccasined feet travelling single
file through the centuries.

While we cannot actually claim it as a local story,
the hero of an Indian tale, which Governor Seymour
was fond of telling, may have lived in our Indian village
or hunted and fished here ; or helped wear the trail over
Hannah's Hill, and thus give it a sufficiently local color
to justify repeating it: Among the tribes which were
held subject by the Six Nations was one on Long Island.
One year they declined to pay the annual tribute of
wampum. A council of the Six Nations was held and
a Mohawk chief delegated to visit the rebellious tribe
and enforce payment. Alone he went down through
the hostile country to the chief village of the subject
tribe. A council was called to hear his message. When
it was assembled, he asked who had advised not paying

14 Hegenb* of a JBtortfjent Count?

the tribute. A chief arose. The Mohawk stepped
up to him and brained him with his tomahawk saying,
' ' This will teach you not to disregard the orders of your
masters." He returned unmolested to his native
village and the tribute was paid.

Governor Seymour, a great admirer of the Six Na-
tions, used to add: "There is nothing finer in Roman
History."

It may not be out of place to repeat here the follow-
ing quotation from Judge Cooper's account of his
settlement of this country, written in 1807 for William
Sampson and published in Dublin in 1810 under the
title of A Guide to the Wilderness.

In 1785 I visited the rough and hilly country of Otsego,
where there existed not an inhabitant, nor any trace of a
road; I was alone, three hundred miles from home, without
bread, meat, or food of any kind; fire and fishing tackle
were my only means of subsistence. I caught trout in the
brook and roasted them in the ashes. My horse fed on the
grass that grew by the edge of the waters. I laid me down
to sleep in my watch coat, nothing but the melancholy
Wilderness around me. In this way I explored the country,
formed my plans of future settlement, and meditated upon
the spot where a place of trade or a village should afterwards
be established.

At what he considered the close of his career, at the
age of fifty-four years he wrote as follows :

Car Ip Settlements anb Settlers 15

I began with the disadvantage of a small capital, and
the encumbrance of a large family, and yet I have already
settled more acres than any man in America. There are
forty thousand souls now holding, directly or indirectly,
under me, and I trust that no one amongst so many can
justly impute to me any act resembling oppression. I am
now descending into the vale of life, and I must acknowl-
edge that I look back with selfcomplacency upon what I
have done, and am proud of having been an instrument in
reclaiming such large and fruitful tracts from the waste of
the creation. And I question whether that sensation is not
now a recompense more grateful to me than all the other
profits I have reaped. Your good sense and knowledge of
the world will excuse this seeming boast; if it be vain (we
all must have our vanities), let it at least serve to show that
industry has its reward, and age its pleasures, and be an
encouragement to others to persevere and prosper.

One other quotation has a personal touch which
justifies its insertion here. It is from a letter written
by James Fenimore Cooper in 1833 or 4, giving an
account of his first trip to Cooperstown after his return
from Europe. He describes the changes along the
Mohawk Valley and says :

On returning to the inn I made an arrangement to go
in the same car with Mrs. Perkins and her party to Schenec-
tady, and thence to this place in an extra, which is a sort of
posting. We were well served, no delay, not longer than
in France a hundred miles from Paris, and got here, 56
miles from Albany, at six o'clock. This place is redolent
of youth. It is now sixteen years since I was here. Roof's

1 6 Hegetrtig of a Jlortfjern Count?

tavern, which I remember from childhood is still standing,
altered to Murray's, and the road winds round it to
mount to Cherry Valley as in old times. But the house
is no longer solitary. There is a village of some six or eight
hundred souls, along the banks of the canal. The bridges
and boats, and locks give the spot quite a Venetian air.
The bridges are pretty and high, and boats are passing al-
most without ceasing. Twenty certainly went by in the
half hour I was on them this evening. I have been up the
ravine to the old Frey house. It looks as it used to in many
respects, and in many it is changed for the worse. The
mills still stand before the door, the house is, if anything, as
comfortable and far finer than formerly, but there is a dis-
tillery added, with a hundred or two of as fat hogs, as one
could wish to see. I enjoyed this walk exceedingly. It
recalled my noble looking, warm hearted, witty father, with
his deep laugh, sweet voice, and fine rich eye, as he used to
lighten the way, with his anecdotes and fun. Old Frey
with his little black peepers, pipe, hearty laugh, broken
English, and warm welcome was in the back ground. I
went to the very spot, where one of the old man's slaves
amused Sam and myself with the imitation of a turkey, some
eight and thirty years since; an imitation that no artist has
ever yet been able to supplant in my memory.

LOCAL NOMENCLATURE

SOME of the names of roads and places about Coopers-
town are interesting and already their origin is lost in
the past.

Of the hills we have " Hannah's Hill" named for
Hannah Cooper; and Mt. Vision, opposite to it, named
by Judge Cooper, I believe. Down to the southeast of
Red Creek we have Eggleston Hill, named from the
family that settled on it; then moving north, up the
east side of the Red Creek Valley,— Hell Hill, from the
difficulty of climbing it; Murphy Hill, from the family
that lived at its base in the Cherry Valley; Johnnie
Cake Hill and next Sweet Ireland, the latter the north-
erly part of Johnnie Cake; Sweet Ireland came from
the settlement of Irish which has about disappeared,
but Johnnie Cake no one to-day can explain.

Of the roads — the Cornish Road runs up from
Bowerstown (Dogtown) and over to the Cherry Valley
toward the south. Nothing is known of the origin of
this name; there may have been a family of Cornishes
living on or near it when settlers were few and the roads
took the names of the adjoining land owners; there is
no town of the name anywhere near; or the great beauty

2 17

1 8 Hesenb* of a Jfrortftern Count?

of the view from it may have recalled to the mind of some
traveled resident the beauty of the Cornice Road and
who suggested, half in jest, calling it that, easily cor-
rupted to Cornish.

To the north are the Murphy Hill Road and the
Sweet Ireland Road. From Red Creek Farm No. 2,
there branches off to the east the road known as
"Pink Street," why or wherefore no one can tell.

"Stoney Lonesome" tells its own tale; it is in the
shallow hollow of the hills between Lentsville, in the
Red Creek Valley, and the Lake. The old house has
completely disappeared and the roads running through
the hollow, one of them the "Mosquito Road," have
been abandoned and closed. Going to it from either
of the eastern approaches via Middlefield Center or
Lentsville, the road passes large and once prosperous
farmhouses, now abandoned to the fate which has al-
ready overtaken the Stoney Lonesome house and many
of its contemporaries.

The roads grow rougher and more difficult to follow
until they become impassable or are fenced off. The
trip across, an attractive one twenty-five years ago, can
now only be made on foot or horseback. This secluded,
shallow, bowl-shaped valley among the hilltops has all
the wonderful charm of the country; the rough fields
overgrown with a great variety of colored weeds; the
low wooded hills; the abandoned fences and almost

Hocal J^omenclature 19

vanished evidences of occupation unite to make the
spot not only "Lonesome" but beautiful. The lay of
the land and the ever-changing color of the clearing fill
the eye, while the loneliness and vanishing evidences
of cultivation appeal to the imagination. One wonders
why, scores of years ago, any settler had the courage to
clear the fields and build the often great farmhouses.
Conditions of life were harder then, when all this labor
was expended, than they were when the places were
abandoned and fell to ruins.

Near Stoney Lonesome is Eagle Hill, with a marvel-
ous view of the country, but the abandonment of the
roads and the growth of the trees has long made it in-
accessible and now even its location is forgotten.

On the other side of the lake, almost opposite, and
close to the short road from Cooperstown to Richfield,
is "Rum Hill" — in these more polite and prohibition
days called "Mount Otsego." The story runs that,
at a conference between the early settlers and the
Indians, a barrel of rum figured as the consideration
of a proposed sale. A disagreement arose, and some
one pushed the barrel over the edge of the hill. It
bounded from ledge to ledge and finally breaking,
spilled the precious fire water over the hillside.

Further to the west is Angel Hill, named for the
family that once owned much of it ; and one can wander
from point to point all over the countryside finding

20 ICesetttig of a Jlortfjern County

curious and interesting local names. At the head of
the lake is the "Sleeping Lion," sometimes called Mt.
Wellington. Its original name was Mt. Millington,
but when George Clarke built Hyde Hall, he found
it easy to change * 'Millington" to "Wellington"
in honor of his friend and schoolmate. The extreme
southern point of this hill is the "Shad Cam,"
left by Judge Cooper to the youngest Elizabeth
Cooper living in 1850. Alas, she never got it, as long
before that date the owner of the adjoining land had
pulled down the fence and claimed the point.

The "Shad Cam" was given its name by the Cooper
boys of a hundred years ago. Even in those days the
lake was infested by lying fishermen. One of them, of
Scotch descent, used to boast, as they still do, of the
fishing of his youth, and finally, as the climax of the
stories of the past, he indicated this point and said,
"Why, boys, in those days the shad cam up to that
point."

On the old map of the Springfield Patent the "Shad
Cam" is indicated as containing eight acres and as
belonging to W. Cooper. In Judge Cooper's "List
of Lands unsold, commencing Nov. i6th, 1797, " is the
following entry: "Springfield Pattent, Nov. i6th Point
and Fishing Place in lot No. 32, 8 acres, Value 250.00. "

Opposite the five-mile point is the "Dugway" with
its history lost. We know the name is a very old one as

Hocal J8tomenclatttre 21

in the itemized account kept by Judge Cooper of the
cost of the road on the east side of the lake there is an
entry of the payment of £68, 5sh. & 6d. for building the
' ' Fifth Mile of the road (The Dugway ) . ' ' This was in 1 790
and on June 18, 1792, it cost I7sh. for ''Mending the
Dugway." The entire road cost £388, I5sh. & id.
The State of New York had appropriated £400 for the
work and the closed account shows a credit of nearly
twelve pounds.

In the Oak Creek Valley a road branches from the
main highway just south of Schuyler's Lake; a mile or
so up the road, where it forks for Hartwick and Burling-
ton, is Pleasant Valley, innocuous enough in appearance
but universally known as "Hell Town." Among the
few houses still standing is an interesting field stone
farmhouse.

Below Milford, on the east of the Susquehanna is
"The Crumhorn," with a forgotten history. Crum-
horn Mountain was the home of the rattlesnake fifty
years ago, and its beautiful lake, which fills its bowl-
like top, was then a great resort for fishermen. To-
day it is almost abandoned ; the old tavern on the shores
of the lake has been turned into a summer residence and
is closed, while the farmhouses have been deserted
and are falling into ruin.

I doubt if it now has as many residents as it did two
days after Christmas in the year 1808, when a con tern-

22 Hesente of a JBtortfjern Count?

plative farmer, whose name, unfortunately has not
survived, comfortably seated by his fireside while the
winter winds blew fiercely over the mountain top,
wrote the following political diatribe :

After I had done my days work I set down by the fire-
side to shave a stick that I had cut for an axe handle, my
Wife had put all the Children in bed and was turning over
and contriving patches for their Cloths; as she seemed much
engaged in her economical plans I did not chuse to disturb
her by entering into conversation, my mind was engaged on
many subjects it soon however fixed upon politics and the
cause of the great stagnation of all kinds of business, they
say that Buonaparte, King George, or some body else will not
let our Vessels sail on the Ocean ; of course then we Farmers
can have no market for our produce except we take it by
Land.

I know of no place we can go to in this way but Canada
and this our own Government forbids, but what right has
Buonaparte or King George to interfere with us ? it is true,
I read in the Papers that Buonaparte told the World that
they should not trade with King George, and that King
George soon after told all those who were afraid to trade
with England upon the account of Buonaparte's threat,
that they should not trade with France unless they paid
him for it, you see by this that he likes Money, the thought
struck me that our Rulers ought not to have depended upon
the justice of other Nations for the protection of our rights
for if Mankind were all just and good they would want no
rulers, it must then be the fault of our rulers that we are
placed in our present situation, or rather our own fault for
placing them to rule over us, who to say the least it appears
are not capable of doing it to our advantage. I finished my

Hocal J^tomemlatute 23

axe handle and an excellent piece of Timber it was, and I
thought if we were as careful in looking for rulers as we are
in choosing an axe handle we should have better times, to
be sure the timber here is not as good as it is down Country,
(and this inferiority for aught I know may hold good in the
animate as well as the inanimate World), but then we have
some pretty good Walnut &c., &c., we need not therefore
take Witch Hazel or Bass Wood unless we have a mind to
do so.
Crum Horn Dec. 27th. 1808.

This is the earliest mention of the name of which I
have any knowledge; it throws no light on its origin
but shows it to be well over a century old. With many
another similar document the above found its way into
the possession of Judge Cooper and has long survived
the children whose clothes were being patched that
December night.

There is laid down on some of the old maps a narrow
strip of land marked " Crumhorn Patent.'* Perhaps one
of the patentees was named " Crumhorn.'*

Above Milford on the same road are "The Jams,"
so called, I was told years ago by my aunt, Susan
Fenimore Cooper, because the hills have the appearance
of having been jammed violently together. Down the
ravine runs a little stream falling from ridge to ridge.

North of Hannah's Hill, and just west of Fenimore,
is Mount Ovis. It was named a little over a century
ago, about 1813, by my grandfather, who kept on it

24 ICesenb* of a jBtortftetn Count?

some of the first imported Merino sheep. Among
them was a famous ram, Sinbad, which was killed by
falling into the well.

Papoose Pool is now little more than a swamp, to
the left of the River road just below its junction with
the road to Richfield ; less than fifty years ago it was a
beautiful wooded pool, with the reputation of being
bottomless. In fact there was only a few feet of water
and limitless mud. It is a quicksand and there are
stories of the quite recent loss of a farm team and
wagon in its depth. No reason for its name is known
to-day.

On the hilltop across the Susquehanna again, and
below Phoenix, is Mossy Pond. The reason for its
name is apparent. Its location has been for years marked
by the Mossy Pond tree, a great tree with a top like
an inverted umbrella. It still towers far above its
mates although now entirely dead.

Going farther afield; over in the Otego Patent we
have "Susie Hole." Who Susie was, we do not know,
unless the Hole belonged to Susanna Dilwing who
owned a large tract in the Croghan Patent.

Frog Hollow, dear to the youth of fifty years ago,
has vanished; it was in the village, to the east of
Pioneer Street at the foot of the hill south of the Pres-
byterian Church. There, as its name suggests, frogs of
all sizes and ages could be found and separated from

Hocal .Nomenclature 25

their hind legs. It was full of cat-tails, too, and of
all swamp -growing flowers. It was a most popular
playground ; just water enough to keep alive frogs and
pollywogs and thoroughly to wet the feet of its explorers.

There are two names, not quite local, upon which an
old map of 1790 throws an interesting light : " Cobles-
kill" and "Schenevus." Both names seem to be de-
rived from the streams near the towns; in 1790 one was
known as "Cobus Kill," and the other as "Shineva
Creek"; the former named for a land owner and the
latter apparently the Indian name.

"Twelve Thousand" is a heading in 'the social
column of the local papers which puzzles and amuses
many readers. I spent an afternoon trying to find a
resident of this village who knew the exact location of
the place, what it was and why it was so called. I met
with no success and finally started out to hunt it up.
After a delightful motor ride and many inquiries along
the way I found that an indefinite tract of lonely land,
sparsely inhabited and dotted with deserted houses,
churches and burying grounds, lying along the heights
east of Schuyler's Lake was, for some reason unknown to
the inhabitants, called "Twelve Thousand."

The country is beautiful and the views extraordi-
narily fine but there seems to be little else to recommend
it as a place in which to live and work. One elderly
resident of whom we asked where "Twelve Thousand"

26 lUgente of a JBtortljern Count?

was, stopped trying to repair a fence long enough to
tell us that we were on it, but he couldn't give us any
reason for the name. He added that he had just bought
the farm which we were on and that he thought he must
have had an attack of temporary aberration when he did
so. I am afraid next winter will remove any doubt
he may have as to his mental condition when he bought
his new home.

On my return I looked over the old maps to see if
they threw any light on the name and found the ex-
planation on a map of the Subdivision of the Great
Croghan or Cooper Patent made about 1770; on it
appears an irregular ell-shaped piece of land run-
ning down near the east side of Schuyler's Lake and
then west across its south end, and some distance
below, bearing the inscription "V. P. Dow & Others,

12000 A."

It's a far cry from "Pig Alley" of fifty years ago to
"Prospect Place" of to-day, and a more than doubtful
improvement in name. Whoever made the change had
a grim sense of humor as old Pig Alley running from
the back of the brick Miller house at the corner of Lake
and Pine streets to Hannah's Hill, had the least of a
prospect of any alley, lane, or street in the village. In
old times when it climbed the almost inaccessible side
of Hannah's Hill to the opening in the woods cut for
the view on the hilltop, it was a favorite Sunday after-

ILotal Jlomenclature 27

noon walk for the girls and boys who were able to escape
the weekly stroll to the cemetery and back. From the
clearing there was a wonderful view of the lake and its
wooded easterly shore.

Along this thickly wooded east shore of the lake were
many places which now are little more than names:
"Prospect Rock," with its beautiful view, now grown
up; "The Seats of the Mighty," on the ledge overlook-
ing the lake just were "John Woods Clearing " began;
a clearing made nearly sixty years ago out of spite, be-
cause Edward Clark wouldn't pay an exorbitant price
for the land after a threat by Wood to clear it and spoil
the lake shore. Beyond this clearing is the Chalet
Farm of Fenimore Cooper and Natty Bumppo's Cave,
and just beyond its northerly line were the remains of
the "Hermit's" House which was abandoned some sixty
years ago ; only the cellar is left, but when I was a boy
the house still stood in its little overgrown clearing. It
already had begun to fall down, the floors were unsafe,
and the name of the hermit forgotten. Farther north,
and just above the Dugway on the hillside was the
"Hogs Back" where two ravines came so close together
that one could straddle the path, with a foot in each.
Until quite recently the finest old pines on the lakeside
stood here.

THE FOUR CORNERS

THERE are other four corners in Cooperstown ; many
of them; there are also three and two corners, and even
one one corner; but it was about "The Four Corners"
that the civic and much of the social life of the town
centered after the first struggling years of its existence.

The "two corners," opposite the entrance to the
Cooper Grounds, claims the distinction of the center
of things in earlier days. Near this spot was the old
Indian village, as was shown by the existence of apple
trees there ; here George Croghan built his log home and
lived for a few years ; when General Clinton came he made
his headquarters at this spot and, later, when William
Cooper built his first house in Otsego, he selected this
place, and the house stood where the gates to the Cooper
Grounds are now, looking up Otsego Lake, while on
the corners opposite were William Cooper's garden on
the west and Andrew Craig's on the east. These
gardens went through to Lake Street and ran east and
west nearly three hundred feet. For a short time
Andrew Craig was a partner in the settlement. He
soon, however, sold out his interest to Cooper. It is
probable, too, that Hartwick made his attempted

28

Jfour Corners 29

settlement here in 1762 or 63, before Croghan's time.
The explanation of the popularity of the spot probably
is that from the time of the Indians there was some kind
of a clearing here ; it was high land near the water and
above all fairly well hidden from the lake and the river.

When the original village was laid out, in 1788, the
westerly line ran north and south through the Four
Corners where Main and Pioneer streets now intersect
one another. These streets were then known as Second
and West streets. It was really the westerly line of
civilization. All traffic came from the east in those
days, and so when the Red Lion Inn was built, on the
southwest corner, it closed over half of the present
Main Street, leaving only a narrow road running out
into the wilderness. Over this trail went many of the
settlers of places west of us. As the village grew,
buildings lined this road and it became a narrowed
Main Street, and so remained until the great fire of
1862 destroyed them and the present street was laid
out the full width of old Main Street.

The Red Lion marked the dawn of the glory of the
Four Corners. From its vantage point, across Main
Street, it filled the eye of the approaching traveler.
Its first sign is said to have been painted by R. R.
Smith, a merchant from Philadelphia, and the first
Sheriff of Otsego County. Opposite, on the southeast
corner, the jail was built, and over it, entered by an

30 ICegettb* of a Jlortfjem Count?

outside flight of steps on Main Street, was the Court
Room. On the west side of West Street, opposite the
jail, were the stocks and the whipping post. It is more
than probable that where the youth of the village now
gather to drink soda water the youth of those times
gathered to throw vegetables at the unfortunate
occupants of the stocks.

Farther west, on the hillside by the present jail, the
gallows stood, when needed. Thus all the imple-
ments of Justice were gathered about the Four Corners ;
and this notwithstanding Judge Cooper's gibe when
the question of a county seat was first agitated: "The
Court House for Cooperstown, the jail for Newtown-
Martin (Middlefield) and the gallows for Cherry
Valley." "The Heart of Midlothian" was only a jail;
the heart of Cooperstown was encircled by all the
insignia of justice and punishment, good cheer and
death.

Near, if not on the northeast corner, was the Blue
Anchor — the rival of the Red Lion — frequented by the
more sedate residents and kept by a retired sea captain.

Where the flag pole stands now, the liberty pole used
to stand and here public meetings were held and
political speakers declaimed.

The location should be dear especially to the learned
professions; the Court House to the lawyers, the jail
to the ministers, and the stocks to the doctors. For

Jfout Corner* 31

here, from the steps of the jail, the first regular preach-
ing was done by Rev. John MacDonald (Scotch
Seceder), who was in jail for debt and on the limits by
grace of a friend who bailed him; and one of the first
occupants of the stocks was Dr. Charles Powers who
so far forgot himself as to put an emetic in the punch
supplied at a ball at the Red Lion, to which he had not
been invited. He confessed, but was not forgiven, was
put in the stocks, and afterwards banished.

It must have been a very sick, or a very hard-hearted,
crowd of young people who could resist Powers 's appeal
for mercy, written with a "trembling hand," if not with a
' ' penitent heart, ' ' and still existing. It reads as follows :

Worthy & much Injured Gentlemen & Ladies
From the Bottom of my Heart I sincerely regret my Pre-
sumptious, Unhappy & Ungrateful Conduct towards you
on the Evening of the 4th of Instant October — Gentlemen
& Ladies will you do me the honour to believe me when I
say that the Tart-Emetic I put into your Liquor was owing
partly to Intoxication and partly to the Insinuation of the
adversary of Men. It was not done from any Pique or
Prejudice I had against the Company, for I acknowledge
you are a Company of very Modest Respectable young
Gentlemen and Ladies. I declare before God and his Holy
Angels that what I did was done to have a little Sport and
from no other Motive. I declare as solemnly that I had no
Intention of Injuring the Health of any person, for had I
wanted that I could have put in the Solution of Corrosive
Sublimate, which is the strongest preparation of Mercury

32 Hejjentrg of a J^ort&ent County

which would have acted as a slow but certain Poison. Or I
might have put in Liquid Laudanum, a Preparation of
Opium, to such Quantity that it would have thrown you all
into a profound sleep from which 'tis not probable all of you
would have awaked both: of which Medicines are much
cheaper than the Tart Emetic. It is needless Gentlemen
& Ladies for me to be more particular.

I now humbly ask the forgiveness of God, Angels & Men

for my foolish conduct and hope and pray I may never be

left to Conduct in such a Manner again. Gentlemen &

Ladies, I ask the forgiveness of you all, and am willing to

make all the retractation I am able to.

And now, Gentlemen & Ladies, will you please to show so
much of the forgiving Temper of the Saviour of Men as to
forgive me and by thus doing you will lay me under the
highest Obligations to study Gratitude to you so long as
God shall spare my life.

This from the penitent Heart and trembling hand

of CHARLES POWERS

Cooperstown
Oct. 8" 1791

Messrs. Joseph Griffin, Carr, White, Meachem &c &c.
Messrs. Griffin, Carr, &c. &c.

An upset stomach surely dulls the sense of humor,
as well as the spirit of forgiveness and the appreciation
of great dangers escaped. I have no doubt that to
many of the revelers the idea of the sleep without a
wakening which might have followed the use of opium
was not at the time wholly disagreeable.

The letter opens a new vision of the Four Corners on
that October night, a hundred and thirty years ago;

Jfour Corner* 33

the Adversary of Men, whispering in the ear of the
country doctor to use opium as cheaper than Tart-
Emetic; and had he yielded to the tempter, the Red
Lion turned into a silent palace of sleeping beauties
and frontier gallants.

The political activities of the town centered at the
Four Corners for years; public meetings were held there
or in the adjoining tavern or nearby " Washington
Hall." At one of these meetings, held about 1808, the
following resolution was adopted; slightly changed, it
almost would have done for a meeting held a few years
ago, with its reference to the "Liberty of the Seas" and
to trusting our natural defense to "Gun Boats, Procla-
mations, and Armies on Paper."

Peace, and no Embargo Nomination,
here take in the proceedings of the Meeting.

FELLOW CITIZENS,

Since the most gloomy period of our Revolution the
Liberty of our Country has not been in a more critical situ-
ation. The Emperor of France began his political career
by singing hosannas to the goddess of Liberty, he now rules
the Continent of Europe at the point of the Bayonet; all
Nations within his reach have by his intrigues and his Arms
been subjected to his control: in pursuance of his plan of
universal dominion but under the specious pretext of giving
of the World the Liberty of the Seas, he issues decrees in
direct violation of the Law of Nations and of his solemn
Treaty with this Republic: in conformity with his policy if
not in obedience to his mandates shall we then fellow Citizens

34 Hegente of a Jlortfjern Countp

by our nonintercourse and embargo Laws assist him in ob-
taining the dominion of the Ocean ? the only barrier between
him and universal Empire — shall we cont inue men in office
who conduct the affairs of the Nation in secret conclave ? —
who pursue measures which will inevitably bring our com-
mon Country to poverty and ruin ? — who will not or cannot
let us know the true cause of these measures — who say we
are upon the eve of a War and commit our defence to Gun
Boats, Proclamations and Armies on Paper — if not arouse
honest Yeomanry of our Country with you under divine
providence rests the Salvation of this Nation, if you are not
now vigilent and at your posts we are undone — we must
become a Nation of Slaves — arouse then before it is too late
and change your Rulers — a change we conceive is absolutely
necessary, the Candidates above nominated are honest Men
possessed of talents and information and who are not pre-
judiced in favour of any foreign Nation, they are American
born and follow the precepts of the immortal Washington —
our forefathers fought and bled and left us a precious Inherit-
ance— Civil & Religious Liberty — let it not depreciate in our
hands but be transmitted to Posterity as pure as we received it.

BENJAMIN GILBERT Chairman
PETER MAYHEW CLARK

It was here, without a doubt, that on July 4th, 1794,
the author read to a patriotic and appreciative audi-
ence:

AN HYMN

Parent of nations! guardian pow'r!

The source of ev'ry good !
Accept the homage of this hour,

Devote to gratitude.

Jfour Corner^ 35

Well may the song aspire to thee,
When freedom is the theme,

Whose service leaves the subject free
In monarchy supreme.

O may the nations learn of thee

To rule and to obey;
Thou giv'st the subjects noblest plea,

Thy laws the mildest sway.

How sweet the]meting of thy care !

How gracious each behest !
"Come ye, who faint and wearied are,

And I will give you rest."

Has not enough of tyrant sway
Despoil'd the subject's peace?

Bid him to freedom seek the way,
Ah, bid oppression cease.

Nor wanting be thy guiding hand
To point th' important aim;

May ne'er mad License rule the land
With Liberty's fair name.

And 0 ! by thy peculiar care,
Columbia's guardian chief!

Long to her wonted int'rests spare
His labours and his life.

May wisdom in our counsils reign,
And union bind our hearts;

Faction attempt her wiles in vain,
Defeated in her arts.

36 Hegenbg of a Jlortftern Count?

Forbid that freedom's sacred fire,

Thus lighted on our shore,
Should with abated flame aspire,

Or ever slumber more.

May firm allegiance e'er await

Protection's mutual arm;
This scorning pow'r unduly great,

That free from false alarm.

July 4th, 1794.

It is written on a double sheet of letter paper, yellow
with age, but is, unfortunately, unsigned. The hand-
writing is that of Richard Fenimore Cooper, the eldest
child of Judge Cooper, then in his nineteenth year.
The wilderness seems to have turned men's thoughts
to poetry.

Between the Red Lion and the jail took place a
famous wrestling match ; Judge Cooper offered a lot of
150 acres to any man on the settlement who could throw
him. He was finally thrown and the lot conveyed to
his conqueror. It was here, too, that as he was leaving
the Court House after holding a term of Court, he was
attacked by James Cochrane, a successful political
rival. There are still in existence affidavits of onlookers
declaring that Judge Cooper won the bout. The cause
of the attack is said to have been a remark by Judge
Cooper that Cochrane had "fiddled his way into Con-

Jfour Corners 37

gress." It seems that while campaigning he fiddled
for the young to dance evenings.

Just west of the Corners was the field where the
Militia paraded and was drilled when the martial
spirit of the town was aroused before the War of 1812;
and doubtless it was the good cheer of the Red Lion,
too liberally partaken of by the weary fighters, which
inspired an unknown poet, probably an envious tax-
paying civilian, to write these verses:

The Country rings around with loud arlarms,
And raw in fields the rude Militia swarms;
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense;
In peace a Charge, in war a weak deffence;
Stout once a Month they march a blustring band,
And ever, but in times of need, at hand.
This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,
Drawn up in rank and file they stood prepared
Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the Day.
The Cowards would have fled, but that they knew,
Themselves so many, and their foes so few; —

The local organization was a "Troop of Light
Dragoons attached to Brig. General Henry McNeil's
Brigade. ' ' At one time the troop had seventy members
in all. Isaac Cooper and Jerome Clark were Lieuten-
ants and at different times in command.

The following receipt gives the name of the Command-

38 Hegenbg of a JBtortftetn Count?

ing Officer in 1808 and a partial list of the property of
the troop :

Capt. Van Deer Veer purchased the

Colors without painting $ 7.00

Trumpet 10. —

One half Clarinet 7.—

French Horn belongs to

the Company — given by
RICHARD F. COOPER

The above articles I give to Isaac Cooper.
Cooperstown Jan. 4th, 1808.

FERD- VANDERVEER.

A surviving inventory shows that there were three
pair of spurs among the seventy horsemen.

As the town grew, the character of the Four Corners
changed, — the Post Office settled near it and the local
printing and newspaper office. In the latter Thurlow
Weed worked in his younger days. A short distance
away was the home of Judge Nelson and opposite the
house and office of Dr. Fuller. In time the Red Lion
retired and the ' ' Eagle" tavern took its place until swept
away by the fire of 1862; logically the Phoenix should
have succeeded, but instead came business houses.

The town became beautiful with age; Main Street
was lined with great overhanging trees and the side-
walks were broad and covered with pine planks.

When the roads improved, the stages came and went

Jfout Cornet^ 39

from the Four Corners, and the youth of the town, and
always some of its elders, gathered at the Corners to meet
the coming guest or "get the mail"; all eyes watched
the western approach to see the stage swing into Main
Street and come, with its four galloping horses, down
to the Post Office. At first it came from Fort Plain
twenty-six miles away, and later from Colliers — seven-
teen — a long and weary ride as the writer remembers it.

The Four Corners has had its share in the military
glory of the town; past this point doubtless the silent
red warriors of the Indian town went to join their tribes-
men in the raids which made the Iroquois the most
dreaded of all the Indian nations ; from it the youth of
the village went forth to the wars of 1812 and 1861, —
some of them never to return.

In 1917 again the village furnished its splendid quota
of volunteers not "too proud to fight," when all that
was best of its youth answered the call to arms; many
of them to give their health or their lives in the camps
and on the battlefields of France.

It was a fine tribute to the fame of our village which
Gabriel Hanotaux paid it when in announcing the entry
of the United States into the World War, he declared,
"The spirit of Leatherstocking still lives in the Amer-
ican people," for the spirit of Leatherstocking surely
haunts the happy hunting grounds of the woods and
lake of Otsego.

GHOSTS— OURS AND OTHERS

IT is not true, as some think, that ghosts walk only
in the South. Our northern land has its "hants."
Doubtless many a ghost welcomes the chance to walk
in a cool climate, and perhaps this explains why hardly
a house in Scotland is without at least one ghostly
visitant.

Be this as it may, north of us, at Ticonderoga, we
have the ghost of the Indian maiden which used to be
seen on the southern rampart, and which, with a scream,
throws itself over to escape the pursuing officer.

It was near this old fort, too, that the great ghost
story of Duncan Campbell of Inverawe staged its last
scene, when, on the eve of the battle in which he was
killed, Campbell met on the bridge the wraith of his
murdered kinsman, who, years before in the tower at
Inverawe, had bade him good-bye until "We shall meet
at Ticonderoga."

Our local ghosts are less thrilling, but just as dear to
us and just as good "hants." Curiously the ghosts of
our village cling to the old part of the town. Perhaps
they are stopped there by the river on their way east,
for ghosts, like witches, cannot cross water.

40

(gfjotfte — ©ur* anb ©tfjer* 41

The oldest of them is the Indian chief who for nearly
a century and a half is known to have sat behind the
old stone wall on River Street, and with his sturdy, if
bony legs, many a time kicked it down. For five
generations, from father to son, has the tradition been
handed down, how, back of this wall, with chin on knees
and hands clasped around shin bones sat, amidst his
weapons and scanty pots and pipes, the skeleton of a
great Mohawk Chief.

Well I remember the terrors of the spot on dark and
rainy nights. I suppose because he was an Indian was
the reason why one's scalp had that queer feeling and
the scalp lock seemed to rise and pull ! I never heard
that he was seen to leave his grave, but I was told,
as have been all the family, that no wall ever had stood,
or ever would stand, at that place. It was the despair
of successive owners, wall after wall was built and
kicked down, until the present heavy one was put up,
thick and strong enough, it was hoped, to withstand the
feet of the old chief ; but even it is yielding, as all may
see. When its predecessor fell, in my youth, there,
glaring at the fallen wall, sat the triumphant old chief,
with bony chin on knees, cavernous eyes, and skinny
legs ; there he was left ; and there he sits to-day.

Ghosts must love company for another has been seen
in the old stone house on the corner below. The house
was built by Judge Cooper for his daughter Anne, when

42 Hegettbg of a J^orfliern Count?

she married George Pomeroy, well over a century ago.
There she lived for many years and grew old. She was
a little woman, and a determined one, and, tradition
says, prided herself on her knowledge of how to bring
up children. She put this knowledge to the test as is
shown by the long and pathetic line of little Pomeroys,
with their little headstones in the Cooper lot in Christ
Churchyard.

In time came shrinking fortunes until finally the little
old woman reluctantly left the old house — but not for
good. It passed into strange hands; but after years
returned to the family, and evidently old Anne
Pomeroy returned to it once more. It was only occu-
pied by the living for short periods and at long intervals.

On a November night, during one of these intervals, a
friend of mine was expecting a guest by the evening
train. The train came, but the guest didn't arrive at
his host's, which was but a block from the old stone
house. Finally he came, and explained the delay, by
saying that he had been lost and would hardly have
found his way had it not been for the nice old lady in
the stone house on the corner below. The host, with
true hospitality, said nothing until the visitor had been
dried and warmed and fed, when by the fireside with
their pipes, he asked about the old lady. His guest
said that, after wandering about in the rain and fail-
ing to find his host's, he went to an old stone house on

anb ©tfjera 43

the corner, which seemed to be closed, but on knocking
repeatedly with the heavy knocker the door was opened
by a little old lady in black with a candle in her hand
who said, in answer to his inquiry if "B" lived there,
"No, he lives in the house on the corresponding corner
below"; and he added, "Here I found you." Nothing
could convince the stranger that the house was and had
for a long time been unoccupied. So after arguing as
only smoking clergy can, they agreeed to settle the dis-
pute by going to the house. The visitor led the way
to the stone house. He admitted that it did look un-
occupied and, after long and lusty knocking, which
brought no lady, old or young, to the door, he declared
himself puzzled, but still convinced that even the ghosts
of Cooperstown would help a stranger. As both the liv-
ing participants of this tale were clergymen its truth
cannot be questioned. Then, too, passing glimpses of the
old lady's face at the window have been caught from
time to time.

The other River Street ghost is even more distinctly
a Cooper wraith, and it, too, clings to the neighborhood
of the old Indian :

The last of the older generation of occupants of
Byberry Cottage died on a Good Friday, some years
ago; she had been an invalid for years, was blind and
had but one leg. She lived in a wheeled chair and her
nurse pushed the chair to Christ Church for service

44 Hesenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

when the weather was good and her patient strong
enough for the trip. During service on the day of her
death, a Good Friday, a member of the congregation,
who had the faculty which the Scotch call "second sight, "
was amazed to see the wheeled chair with its invalid
occupant move past her up the middle aisle of the
church. Noiselessly and slowly it went; but no one
was pushing it. It seemed to move of its own volition.
Usually it was turned when it reached the transepts
and stood at one side during the service, but, on this
Good Friday, it moved solemnly up through the choir
and seemed to vanish in the altar itself. Immediately
the one who saw the vision spoke of it. After service
was over, it was announced that the invalid had died,
shortly before.

She was most devout and her greatest treat was to
attend service in the church she loved. About By-
berry Cottage, her home, cling many stories of its
original occupants. One of them, Susan Fenimore
Cooper, is still remembered as a saint. She gave her
life, and most of her small fortune, to good works. It
was she who founded the Hospital, the Orphanage, and
the Home for Old Women, and, by her efforts kept them
alive during the years of their struggling youth. She
was very deaf and slight, but had what is now recog-
nized as great psychic power. It was then called
animal magnetism. She always had this mysterious

aito ©fter* 45

something and far back in the last century experimented
with it at the Old Hall.

Her power was most extraordinary and, for her
friends and relatives, she would exercise it at any time.
No material thing was too heavy for her to move. She
frequently, as a demonstration of this, would move an
inverted dining-table with a heavy man seated on a pile
of books on it. The heaviest man in town, old Judge
Sturgis, once took this strange ride.

She was deeply religious and finally, a few years be-
fore her death and after an evening of experiments, she
heard strange sounds and thought that they and the
spirits which she thought filled her room had come to
warn her that the gift was of the devil. She refused
ever again to exercise it and a great opportunity for
scientific study was lost.

There is the recollection of another shadowy visitor,
which used to be seen in the old house which formerly
stood opposite the Indian's grave. Well I remember,
when sent there as a mere child to see the grown-up
daughter of my dead uncle, Richard Cooper, seating
myself with all the embarrassment of such an occasion,
in his library chair, only to be told, with great excite-
ment, not to sit in it as uncle Richard was occupying
it! Truly a nerve-racking experience for a child and
one which greatly enhanced the terrors of River Street.

There were in my youth other ghosts, more nebulous,

46 Hegenb* of a Jfrortfjern Count?

which haunted certain houses; one of them was down
on the river road, but it has been exorcised ; another, on
the lake road, was closely allied to a sad tragedy of love
and death. This one too has been laid, and as neither
are family possessions and some tenants are so un-
reasonable as not to appreciate rented or purchased
ghosts, I pass them by.

One other ghost there is, a connection, if not a rela-
tive, and it I knew first hand. The story goes back
well over a century to the earlier days of the settlement.
One of the Coopers married a noted beauty of her day,
whose family had come from Virginia to settle on the
extreme northern portion of the so-called Cooper
Patent. There are portraits of her still hanging on
the walls of her one-time homes. They show a very
handsome, but rather hard and proud woman, evi-
dently of great will power. After a married life of
several years her first husband died, in 1813, at the age
of thirty-seven. There had been much scandal about
her husband's friend who owned and occupied a great ad-
joining estate. The talk was not allayed when, immedi-
ately after the funeral, the widow, Ann, went with her
admirer to his home. She afterward told my father, a
great favorite of hers, that she was married immedi-
ately— but this has to do with a State-wide scandal of
those days and not with ghosts.

She had in time a son ; and then a second son, who on

anb ©tfjer* 47

his father's death, took possession of the great house
on the estate and married another celebrated beauty
and brought her to his home. I doubt if any house is
large enough for an ex-beauty of advanced years, and
doubtless bad temper, and a reigning beauty, in the
glory of her youth.

Whatever the cause may have been, Ann was in-
vited to leave and find herself a home elsewhere. This
she did reluctantly, and moved into her father's house
a few miles away. As she left, while the young people
stood at the entrance and the horses waited, she turned
and with lifted hand cursed the house she loved. ' ' You
may drive me out now, but I shall return and haunt it
forever" — were her parting words, as told to me by
my father, and the tale runs, — unauthenticated, how-
ever, — that she added : ''May no woman ever be happy
in it again."

Tradition says that it had been a gay and somewhat
wild life which had been lived there, and my mother
has told me of the desperate gaming indulged in and
how one of my great uncles, the builder and owner of
"Woodside," after losing all his other property finally
staked and lost his house.

Years passed; the great house was almost abandoned.
Occupied in part only and for brief periods it fell into decay
and became a wonderful home for "hants." Its fame
as a haunted house spread through the countryside

48 Hegenfc* of a J^tortfjent Count?

and even reached England. Again the heir married,
and again the bride was a great beauty and a most
gracious woman ; the house was once more occupied and
gradually restored; children's voices resounded through
its halls and great rooms and it saw a delightful social
life.

Knowing it and its owners from my youth, I was a
frequent visitor for nearly half a century. Some thirty
years ago I was one of a November house party com-
posed, with one other exception, of members of the
host's family.

The available rooms, for the house as yet had not all
been restored, were not over many and so when bed-
time came, I found myself in a room far down one of the
corridors which opened on the central court about
which the house was built. My windows looked out
on the dripping wooded mountainside. By the light
of my candle I saw that the room was one of those not
yet restored; the paper in places hung in strips
from the wall ; the big mirror between the windows was
without much of the silver backing; the bare floor was
uneven and a bit loose in spots. The door was at the
end of one side and didn't fasten. At the other end of
the room was the single bed and beside it, balancing
the door, a great old-fashioned wardrobe, which with
a dressing-table and a chair were all the furniture.

After a look about I got into bed with the candle on

(gfjogte — ©ur* anb ©fterg 49

the chair beside me, and fell asleep, having no fear at
least of family ghosts. One keeps no track of time
while sleeping, but I suddenly found myself wide awake,
with every sense on the alert and that mysterious feel-
ing, which most of us have had at times, that there was
someone in the room. It was dark as the plague of Egypt
and only the dripping trees and soughing wind could
be heard, when, after I know not how long, I heard a
slow footstep as of someone approaching from the
corner of the room opposite the door. Slowly, deliber-
ately, it came over the bare and creaking floor, toward
the bed; again I noticed that queer sensation about
my scalp lock which, as a boy, I felt when passing the
grave of the Indian chief late at night. Flat on my
back I lay, motionless, more anxious to escape atten-
tion than to see who my visitor was, and dreading what
the light of my candle might show.

On came that awful, deliberate footstep toward the
left of my bed, where the great wardrobe was, until
finally, after years, it was beside the lower part of the
bed. Then, as I lay motionless and expectant, slowly
the bed clothes were drawn across my body, not as if
pulled by a hand, but as if someone in passing too close
to the bed had brushed against them and drawn them
slowly off.

Then silence in the room. I leaped from the other
side of the bed and lighted my candle. The room was

50 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

empty, and so was the wardrobe. The door was closed,
and the bed clothes, drawn from the foot, were partially
on the floor and partially on the bedside.

Realizing that ghosts rarely come but once in a night,
I got back into bed and fell asleep. Next day, I said
nothing of my disturbed night until evening when we
were all gathered about the fire in the dim old book-
lined library. An English relative of the owner of the
house, who was himself absent, remarked that it was
known in England as haunted. This, of course,
brought up the question of its ghosts for discussion and
the widow of the last owner said, "Of course it's
haunted," and told what she had seen and heard. One
tale led to another until I turned to my hostess, a life-
long friend and distant relative, and said, "M , I

have often heard of the ghosts of this place but never
until last night did I see one." Then I told my story,
laughingly. I noticed my hostess looked serious and
after a time suggested that if I would go with her
through the long dark corridors and rooms she would
get some cider; adding that all the talk of ghosts had
made her a bit nervous.

Hardly had the library door closed behind us when
she turned to me and said, ' ' ] , is that true ? " I as-
sured her that it was absolutely; then she said, "It's
strange, that is the haunted room, we never use it, but
the house is crowded and I knew you best aad knew

51

that you were familiar with the house and so put you
there ; it was old G - 's dressing-room and my last nurse
and A - (her daughter) both declare that one even-
ing they saw the figure of an old man in a yellow, red,
and green wrapper go down the corridor ahead of them
and turn into that room; they insisted on it and I sent
the nurse away. Such a wrapper we have packed in
the attic; it belonged to old G - ."

Well, the cider helped a little, but I didn't look for-
ward to more nights in that room with anticipations of
joy. I did my best to keep the party amused and make
them forget bedtime, with fair success, but the un-
avoidable hour came and again I found myself alone
with my candle ; again my night was disturbed, but
this time in a semi-comic manner and only indirectly
by ghosts, so let that story go until another time.

Many are the other tales of the old house told by its
inmates; one tells how, in the dead of night, the piano
in the vast drawing-room plays tirelessly ; another of the
underground passageway, from the closet under the wind-
ing stairs to the family vault, through which the dead
passed back and forth, safe from exposure to the
weather. I remember often seeing the black opening
of the passageway, in the little closet, but have heard
that some more venturesome soul crawled into it only
to find it blocked against him after a short distance.

In old times when a member of the family died,

52 Hegente of a Jlortfjern County

he didn't go far from the house to find a new resting
place. Hardly more than a stone's throw from the
front door is the family vault, built in the hillside where
it falls to the lake; it is a commodious resting place for
the dead. Years ago it was open to living and dead
alike; the doors at either end of the passageway leading
back into the hillside were unlocked and often open,
and access to the vault itself, which lay deep in the
ground, at right angles to the entrance, required only
courage and curiosity. In it lay, under stone sar-
cophagi, the builder and some of his family, while on
the floor was the exposed coffin of one of the dead occu-
pants. In those days it was the test of courage to go
down into the vault, at midnight, with a candle only
as light. I remember one youth who made the trip
and failing to return promptly, we all went to look
for him, and found him seated on the exposed and
cracked coffin, smoking, while to add to his comfort
and the cheerfulness of the occasion, he had built, with
chips from the coffin, a small fire in the center of the
vault.

When the builder of the old house died, his bedroom
and dressing-room, on the first floor, were closed, just
as he left them. In time the floors gradually settled,
the furniture moved toward the center, and finally
everything went through into the cellar. We often
opened the door to look at the collapsed floor with the

anb ©tfjer* 53

carpet hanging on the broken beams and the furniture
piled in the cellar. We used the drawing-room for
hand ball and racquette, and the proprietor often used
the entrance hall to store extra carriages in. The house
was always full of interest and excitement for the young,
with its air of mystery, its great size and beauty. One
of our greatest architects, Stanford White, said of it,
that it was the most beautiful country house in America.

It had in those days too another attraction at least
for boys ; it was overrun by small snakes, brown with a
golden collar. One met them everywhere in the cor-
ridors and rooms, and low boards were slipped in the
bedroom doors to keep out those which wandered about
the long halls. I remember once that a stranger who
was talking with me in the library suddenly became
silent and a look of terror spread over his face, I fol-
lowed the direction of this fixed stare and saw curled
under a desk, one of the larger of the snakes with head
erect.

As to my ghostly visitant the only question is of
idenity : Whose wraith was it ? I like to think that it
was old Ann's, come to prove to me that she was keeping
the oath which she swore so solemnly, when nearly a
century before she was ordered from her home, and of
which she knew my father had told me.

There is a vision sometimes seen from the hillside
where Fynmere now stands; in the golden haze of

54 Hegenb* of a Jftortfjern Count?

the October late afternoons, when our beautiful valley
glows softly with yellows and reds, may be seen a row
of horsemen, riding slowly up the road. There is a
space in their ranks, now between the third and the
fourth, and those of us who see them know for whom
the space is kept by the silent riders.

SOME OTHER GHOSTS

There are other ghosts that I have known besides
the Cooperstown ones; two are especially interesting,
one I saw and the other I heard about very directly.

Years ago, in the old Elk Street house, I awoke to find
a woman standing by my bedside, about halfway be-
tween the head and the foot. She was looking down
on me intently. I always slept, in those days, with my
door open so as to hear if anything happened in the
house. Opposite one of my windows, which had no
blinds or shutters, was an old-fashioned electric street
light which thoroughly illuminated my room.

I was a very light sleeper. On this occasion a
feeling that something was in the room awakened me
and I turned over; I had been lying with my face to
the wall, and there was a woman, close to the bed,
looking down on me.

She was so real that I thought at once that it7 was my
mother and spoke to her, saying, " Mother, what do

<gfjo*te — ©ur* anb ©tfjer* 55

you want?" There was no reply and no motion; still I
thought it human and concluded it must be one of my
sisters walking in her sleep, so rising on my elbow I
grabbed at the figure to wake her up. Although I
seemed to reach it I felt nothing, so reaching farther
forward I made a long swing with my arm, but again
caught nothing; then I realized that my arm and hand
had passed through the figure. It still stood motion-
less gazing down on my face. I fell back on the bed
with a gasp, and after returning the stare for a few
seconds, for the first time noticing that I could see the
heavy lines of a closet through the form, closed my
eyes, and when I opened them again, it was gone.

Still half convinced that it was a sleepwalker I jumped
from bed and hurried out into the hall to overtake it or
find who it was ; no one was there, and on going to the
different rooms I found all the family safely in bed.

Puzzled, I went back to my room and got into bed,
then I noticed that the dark lines of the closet back of
where the figure had been, and which I had seen
through it, indicated that it had stood much higher
than the ordinary human form.

The other ghost is one of the kind now explained by
men of science on the theory of telepathy.

There were in Albany some years ago two men, of
approximately the same age, one a sculptor and the
other a painter. They were unlike in all except age

56 Hesenbg of a JHortfjern Count?

and dignity of appearance. The sculptor, P , was

perhaps the greatest of his time in the country, pros-
perous, honored, and exceedingly handsome. He was
very tall with a ruddy complexion and wonderful white

hair and beard. The painter, T , while loving his

art, was unsuccessful. All his life he had struggled to
accomplish what his friend had won easily; but failed.
He was a smaller and a dark man. Almost every day
for years they met in the local art store, and in its gal-
lery talked over many things and criticized the pictures.

I knew them well, especially P , who came from

Otsego County. Quite frequently I stopped in and
talked with them.

Finally a morning came when P was not there.

T waited; and came again; but P never re-
turned to the gallery, and, after a few days, T also

disappeared. He lived in the country some miles
below Albany.

About the time of their usual meeting one morning,

the news came that P had died at nine o'clock.

The proprietor of the store took a horse and wagon and

drove to T 's house to tell him of his friend's death.

Poor T was lying ill on his bed and when he saw

the art dealer come into the room, he said, "I know

what you have come for, P is dead. He died

at nine o'clock this morning." The dealer, Surprised
that anyone should have hurried out to break the news,

anb ©tfjer* 57

answered : ' ' Who told you ? " T replied : ' ' He did ;

at nine o'clock this morning, he came into the room
and stood by my bed, where you do now, and said to

me: 'T , I'm going; I have come to say good-bye

to you.'"

This was told to me at the time by the art dealer.

T lingered for a while and then joined his more

successful friend.

There is at Cooperstown another house with its
ghostly visitant, unless recently exorcised. It is the
oldest brick house in the village where, years ago, the
owner smothered his wife with a pillow, and where,
when conditions are right, muffled screams and groans
were frequently heard.

I may have forgotten some of my genial ghost friends ;
if so, I ask their forgiveness, and trust that they will
quietly ignore the oversight.

Of course there are the Witch Trees, but they are for
the children rather than the grown-ups. Here and
there one sees them — tall and lanky; and always pressing
toward the east. They look like skinny old women,
bent with age and the constant endeavor to drag their
heavy feet eastward. For years I have watched one,
but as yet have not seen it make any progress. Per-
haps they are doomed to hopeless and endless endeavor
as a punishment for some crime when they were living
women.

58 Eegenbg of a JBtortfjern Count?

Clinging to some of the houses and localities are
stories of other things than ghosts which will bear re-
peating here; as the tale of the Wandering Jew and the
stories of the gay revelers whose wraiths must still
frequent some of the older houses.

There was great religious toleration in these frontier
settlements. It has been said truthfully, that in the
colony of New York no one ever was persecuted for
his religious belief. Here, at Cooperstown, all de-
nominations lived in harmony and worshiped together
for a time — and then were buried in the same graveyard.

For years in the northwest corner of the Presbyterian
burying ground lay a Jew. His stone bore an inscrip-
tion in Hebrew and the date of his death was given in
the Hebraic Chronology. Who he was, when he was
buried, and why he selected the coldest corner of the
blue Presbyterian churchyard to rest in no one knew.
Nothing is known about him. For a century he lay in
his neglected grave, visited occasionally by a curious
resident or an inquisitive stranger in search of the
famous epitaph :

" Lord she is thin,1 and not our own

Thou has not done us wrong
We thank the for the precious loan
Afforded us so long." f

1 Unfortunately, " Susannah the wife of Mr Perez Ensign who died
July 18*1? 1825" was very thin.

anb ©t&erg 59

His presence among the Presbyterians always excited
wonder and the inscription the interest of tourist and
resident alike. One morning his grave stone was missed
and all evidence of his long rest in the burying ground
had vanished ; a careful search was made but not a trace
of it could be found and to this day the mystery of its
disappearance has never been explained — unless he
was the Wandering Jew, and after resting his allotted
period in our graveyard picked up his stone and
started on his restless way.

The contrasts of life are great; from the graveyard
we go to the country house of a century ago ; about the
time when the Jew appeard in the churchyard, three
families arrived from the Bahama Islands and settled
on land along the Susquehanna, south of the village.
They each built a large and fine colonial house. Years
later one of these was destroyed by fire and one was
abandoned and is now a mere shell which a few more
winters will level with the ground, but the third still
stands looking across the valley, with its classical
portico. It is practically as it was a century ago —
dignified and beautiful.

The builder, tradition says, ran away with his em-
ployer's daughter and they built their new home here.
She was a large woman and lazy, and disliked the effort
of climbing stairs, so the house was built almost en-
tirely on one floor; only a rudimentary second floor

6o 3Usenb£ of a JHort&ern Count?

with rooms for servants. The lower floor was most
spacious. The builders were rich and gay ; life was one
long round of riding, gaming, dancing, and drinking, in
which young and old from the village, two miles away,
joined with the nearer neighbors.

The present owner, who has lived in the house for
over sixty years, relates many anecdotes of its early
history; the guests generally arrived on horseback, or
in sleighs, among them many a man who was, or be-
came, famous throughout the country. The stakes
were high and the gayety fast and furious; fortunes
changed hands in that innocent-looking colonial house.
The hostess who grew larger and slow of movement sat
in the big drawing-room and, that nothing might escape
her attention, had a window cut through into one of
the two dining-rooms where cards were played and from
which a stairway led to the wine cellar. From this
vantage point she kept track of the game and the wine ;
she was no spoil sport, however, and left the gamesters
unmolested till far on toward dawn there was mounting
of horses and gay winner and sad loser galloped away.

A GRAVEYARD ROMANCE— A TRAGEDY
AND A SCANDAL

NEAR the easterly line of the Cooper burying ground
are two graves, side by side, one of Hannah Cooper and
the other of Col. Richard Cary.

The visitor in reaching them must be careful not to
fall over either Mr. or Mrs. Avery Averell or over one
of the long row of little Pomeroys. The Averys are
strangers to the people among whom they rest, and
why they lie where they do, no one to-day knows; so is
Col. Richard Cary, one time on General Washington's
staff, but the reason of his presence is known.

For years the tomb of Hannah Cooper bore only the
verses engraved on it, and written by her father, Judge
Cooper. The name and date were added later. Hannah
was his favorite daughter; she was, according to tradi-
tion and contemporary writings, talented, beautiful,
and good. She lived with her father when he attended
the Sessions of Congress at Philadelphia and made
many friends and had many admirers.

In the autumn of the year 1800, she, with one of her
brothers, either William or Richard, started from her
home to visit the Morris family at Butternuts. The

61

62 Hegenb* of a J^ortfjern Count?

ride was about twenty-four miles over hill and dale, and
almost entirely through the woods. As about the only
way of travel in the wilderness was on horseback she was
an expert horsewoman, but when her horse was brought
out and proved to be a thoroughbred, recently imported
by her father, she expressed some reluctance to ride
him. Of course her brothers twitted her with timidity
and she yielded and rode off.

All went well until they were approaching the Morris
place. Perhaps the long ride had tired her or made her
careless. The horse shied violently, it is said at a dog,
threw her by the roadside, and broke her neck. The
spot is still marked by a shaft of marble, three sides of
which are devoted to her virtues.

This monument was sent all the way from Phila-
delphia and was the tribute of an admirer. In the
lapse of time his name was forgotten and I have heard
this post-mortem attention attributed to a number of
Hannah's friends, among them Moss Kent, but the
letters which are set out in another article in this volume
show that the monument was sent by J. H. Imlay of
Allentown, N. J., by whom, I think, the inscription on
the south face was written; those on the other sides
were the work one of a Mrs. Meredith and the other of a
Miss Wistar, both of Philadelphia; the monument, a
monolith, is, notwithstanding its one hundred and
twenty years, in a condition of perfect preservation.

& (Srabcparb Romance 63

The inscriptions which it bears I have set out at length
with the letters relating to it.

Her brother turned about and rode back to Coopers-
town, bringing the news of the accident. On his
arrival Judge Cooper and Moss Kent, a great ad-
mirer of Hannah's, and some of the family mounted
and started at once for Morris. It was late; the
moon was full and the country ablaze with autumn
colors. My father has often repeated to me the
story of that long and silent ride as told to him by
his father, to whom it had been related by Moss
Kent.

Poor Hannah ! She was brought back to her home,
and laid temporarily on the old Queen Anne table now
in the dining-room at Fynmere, which had been brought
from Richard Fenimore's home in Rancocus, New
Jersey, and subsequently became the library table at
Otsego Hall.

In due time she was buried under the stone bearing
these verses by her heart-broken father:

Adieu! thou Gentle, Pious, Spotless, Fair,
Thou more than daughter of my fondest care,
Farewell ! Farewell ! till happier ages roll
And waft me Purer to thy kindred Soul.
Oft shall the Orphan and the Widow'd poor
Thy bounty fed, this lonely spot explore,
There to relate thy seeming hapless doom,
(More than the solemn record of the tomb,

64 Hegente of a J^ortfjern County

By tender love inscribed can e'er portray,
Nor sculptured Marble, nor the Plaintiff lay,
Proclaim thy Virtues thro' the vale of time)
And bathe with grateful tears thy hallowed shrine.

Among her elderly admirers was Col. Richard Gary,
the father of the Ann Gary who married Richard
Cooper and later George Clarke. When the gallant
Virginia Colonel came to die, he whispered to his
mourning family that he had one last request to make
— "Bury me beside Hannah Cooper; she was the best
woman I ever knew and my only chance of Paradise is
getting in on her skirts."

This may have been a shock to his wife and family
but they respected his wish and buried him where he
still lies — close beside Hannah. Whether or not he
accomplished his purpose only Eternity can tell the
reader.

Here the romance ends — but among the books which
have survived the vicissitudes of over a century and a
quarter of attic life, is a rather large calfskin-covered
volume inscribed "Miss Coopers Commonplace Book."
It is dated 1791 and on the flyleaf is written "Miss H.
Cooper, Cooperstown."

Nearly three hundred pages are filled with poetry and
prose copied or written with great care by the owner,
and which by their character show the turn of mind of
Hannah from early youth until her death. Then fol-

& <§rabepartii Romance 65

lows a memorial entry in a new handwriting and after
it copies of a number of letters of condolence written
to Judge Cooper, and several poems contributed by
mourning, but now unknown friends. It was an age of
formality and even the expressions of grief and sympathy
were formal and artificial, although doubtless sincere.

From these expressions of sorrow, typical of the times,
I have selected the following to show that Hannah had
many friends and mourners besides Colonel Cary, and
to show the then prevailing method of expressing grief
and sympathy:

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE AMIABLE H. C.

Hast thou not seen the lucid ray of Even !

Far, in the west, diffuse its modest ray;
And mark'd the bright, Cerulean beam of Heaven

Cheer and irradiate the Orient day?

Hast thou not seen Religion's powerful aid
Fresh luster to the brow of youth, impart?

And Charity, in Cooper's form portray'd,
Warm and ameliorate the human heart !

Yes — thou hast seen, meek gratitude express'd,
Where beauty (lowly bends) to Virtue's shrine

And Pity's pure oraison, address'd

To Him, who bade Ethereal glories shine.

Wrap'd in the sable garniture of Woe,

Where pendent Cypress shades funereal gloom —

The muse, her plaintive requiem, taught to flow,
And Friendship wept, at Cooper's silent tomb.

66 Hegento of a Jfrortfjern Count?

'Twas Thine, to animate life's swift career,
Mild, modest, artless, innocently gay —

'Twas thine, to fill &&' higher, nobler sphere,
With sainted spirits in the realms of day.

For thee sweet maid ! resplendent beams of thought,
Wisdom's rich lore, by seraph's hands were given,

Thy spotless soul, the pure effulgence caught,
It sparkled, was exhaled, and went to Heaven.

BY A YOUNG LADY.

Philadelphia, September 26th, 1800.

Death, ere thou has killed another,
Fair, and learned, and good as she
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

On the loth instant, departed this life, Miss Hannah
Cooper, eldest daughter of Wm. Cooper, Esq. of Coopers-
town. Her death was occasioned by a sudden fall from her
horse, on the road between Cooperstown and the Butter-
nutts, about one mile from the latter place —

The merit and accomplishments of this excellent young
lady, who was universally respected, as she was extensively
known, combined with the melancholy circumstances of her
untimely exit, will long be remembered with mingled ad-
miration and regret, by all who had the happiness of her
acquaintance.

Her friends, her neighbors, and the forlorn objects of
her compassionate bounties, will forever cherish, with avari-
cious sadness, the endearing memory of her exemplary
virtues — Her inconsolable Parents ! . . .

But who can paint their sorrow!

Can imagination trail amidst its vast creation, hues so sad !

3 (Srabeparb Romance 67

Cease, woe struck mourners, check the trickling eye,
Full sacrifice enough to fortune's given;
The treacherous earth, that smiles so seemingly,
Teems big with death, and death's the debt of Heaven,
Waste not in idle grief the silent hour,
If shielded virtue gard the honest breast,
Surrendering sorrow sheaths his blunted power,
Death hides his sting and droops his baffled crest.

Rome, Sept. 29th, 1800.

Lines on the Death of an amiable and beautiful young lady
at on Sept. loth, 1800 — by Mr.

Death took it in his empty skull
He'd be a beau on next birth-day,
And needs a nosegay he must pull
To make him up a choice boquet.

To Beauty's garden straight he hied,
With sweeping scythe her flowers to mow;
"Your trouble spare" the owner cried,
"By my advice to Otsego go. "

Tho' here fond bees for sweets may swarm,
Their tasteless buzzings do not mind
For there each grace that sense can charm,
In one fair blooming flower you'll find.

Quick to this lovely fragrant rose
His icy fingers he applies;
Death's finest of fine birth-day beaux,
For in his breast Hannah dies !

68 Hegenti* of a Jfrortfjern Count?

Her bloom's bequeathed to blushing morn,
Her fragrance with the zephyrs blends ;
But ah ! to whom is left the thorn ?
Sharp in the bosom of her friends.

Miss HANNAH COOPER.

Sept. 24th, 1800.

MY DEAR FRIEND

The awful and calamitous visitation with which it has
pleased the Almighty to afflict you and your dear Family,
reached me yesterday.

To renew your grief by any offer of consolation is a hard
task, but I cannot on this mournful occasion entirely sup-
press the feelings of friendship — To say that I sympathize
with sincerity is but a faint expression of my distress, no
person acquainted with the dear deceased, could hear the
melancholy tale with composure — but for me who pos-
sessed a more than common friendship for her, it was dis-
tressing in the extreme, mine was an affectionate and
reverent friendship founded upon a long and intimate ac-
quaintance with her uncommon worth — There is one
circumstance, my friend which must be reflected upon with
comfort — Her life — Her amiable and blameless life was
such as to secure her an everlasting portion of that happy
state, of which she was often thoughtfull — May we while
we regret her absence endeavor to imitate her conduct.

The subject grows to painfull for me — Indulge me in
one last affectionate and sincere Tear — it is a small tribute
to her blessed memory.

Adieu.

RIC'D R. SMITH.

Philadelphia, September 2Oth, 1800.

8 ©rabeparb Romance 69

New York, 9 mo. 3Oth, 1800.

DEAR FRIEND —

I know it is but little a friend can say that may have much
tendency to aleviate such pain and affliction, that the and
thy family experience, in the loss of your dear Hannah —
its but a few days past, since I read the afflicting account —
My regard and love for her was such, I feelingly participate
in mourning the loss of her.

The present fall I propos'd seeing Cooperstown, one of
the pleasing circumstances I contemplated in the intended
visit was to see and be with her, and the rest of the family —
Thee knows, & I know, its much easier for the Tongue
or Pen to speak on so affecting a subject than for the
heart of the afflicted to experience what is said — however
this we are confident of "that a sparrow falls not with-
out his knowledge, much less man" — We see but little
ahead, nay in comparison, none, the end of poor dear
Hannah is extremely afflicting, but we know not wether
ever after she would have been so well prepared for the
great change —

I am sure her Father & Mother, with the rest of her rela-
tions, have one consolation among many, in the remem-
brance of her, which now must be the greatest of all, that is
"she was a good girl, & I doubt not is gone to rest, a com-
fortable hope of which will operate on the mind, so as in
part to aleviate extreme mourning — not looking back but
forward, hoping that we may be thus prepared, that when-
ever it is our lot to bid adieu here, we may be likewise
ready —

Farewell my dear friend, believe me to be
thy very affectionate,

J. PEARSALL.

70 Hesenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

MY DEAR FRIEND

Just as I was determined to write you with every senti-
ment of gratitude, Acknowledge your friendly letter was
most sothing & flattering to my heart, the tender interest
you appeared to take in my affairs, & the prudent & judi-
cious council you gave, all confirmed the opinion I had long
nourished of your Philanthropy & Friendly disposition to
my much lamented Friend & all his family — Just as I had
commenced my letter, Betsy with a most dejected counte-
nance entered with a newspaper, exclaiming, Oh Mama
poor Miss Cooper! What about her, oh read that most
direful account —

How shall I address you on a subject so painful, my heart
has from that moment sympathized with you, it revived
all those painful ideas that the loss of my beloved son gave
me, Yes my friend, I felt for you, I mourn your loss, She was
a jewel of immense value to you & her friends — Yes it is
over, the painful conflict is past, & she Blessed shade is at
Peace. What abundant consolation will a retrospect of her
short life afford you — and soon will you be convinced that
she is far better off, than those who have the debt still to
discharge — Soon must all, that now bask in the sunshine
of prosperity, submit to the unrelenting hand of death,
she has done her duty and will be rewarded — her character
is sealed — nothing can now happen to disturb her or your
repose.

The friend that weeps ore the grave of his departed
friend this day, most assuredly shall, in a very short time
be succeeded by his mourning relatives, there is a constant
succession, we tumble in, one after the other, & yet mourn
as if we had a lease for our lives — Death must not be
viewed as the greatest evil — evil certainly no — We are
deprived 'tis true of some good, but let us always act ration-
ally & then we shall view every point on its proper ground —

S (Srabeparb Romance 71

Excuse the liberty I have taken in addressing you at this
period, when your heart is still bleeding, I well know few
people can pay acceptable visits to the afflicted, but a
sympathy so powerful as I felt for you appeared to do away
all ceremony & I felt myself compelled to offer you some
consoling ideas — if anything I can say will for a moment
mitigate the severity of your grief, I shall be rewarded for
the anxiety the doubts have occasioned.

Her reign was short, & what is the product of the longest
& best of lives, are they not evils strewed in every human
path, can we traverse any without difficulty? No — a long
life will evince the truth of this — the best & most fortunate
can only obtain a character which time will efface — nothing
permanent here — let us be wise in time & act justly on all
subjects — then may we enjoy the blessings which are in
our power.

May God bless you & yours, with health & every earthly
blessing — is the sincere prayer of your Friend,

ANNE FRANCIS.

Philadelphia,

October 4th, 1800.

It is evident from the following and other letters,
that Hannah had a premonition of death; perhaps she
was what the Scotch call "fey."

MY DEAR FRIEND

On the 23rd Instant, I reed, a letter from Mr. A. Ten-
broeck, containing the truly melancholy and distressing
intelligence that Miss Cooper — alas! is no more! — this is an
event, which at any time, and under almost any circum-
stances would be very afflicting, and a loss irreparable, but
the manner in which it has come, renders the same painful,
distressing and afflictive, beyond imagination — In such

72 Hegettte of a JBtortftern Count?

case what can I offer, or say, by way of consolation? Indeed
I have nothing — it would be well for me if I had — for verily
I am not without much occasion for it myself — to say that
your daughter was good and amiable, would be only saying
what is well known to yourself, and all who had the happi-
ness of her acquaintance, and would only perhaps be adding
accumulated distress to the severest affliction. In one
sense, this may be true — but in another it must be a source
of inexpressible comfort and satisfaction and thereby afford
some relief to your sorrow, and consolation under your
bereavement — that while her great goodness and amiable-
ness endeared her to all her acquaintances, they have made
her meet for the Kingdom of Heaven, and prepared her to
change her abode (and that in an instant, with hardly a
momentary pause) from among mortals — a state at best
of vicissitude, pain and sorrow, for an abode among the
Blessed. Our loss is truly her gain — As sure as this con-
sideration can assuage your own, and the grief of the Family
on this melancholy catastrophe, and offered ground of con-
solation, and surely it is of all others the greatest — it must
be abundantly yours — During my visit with you last
summer, which I must e'en think of with pleasure, tho' now
mixed with much alloy, in some of my walks with Miss
Cooper — once or twice in particular, when passing through
that lonely mansion back of your house, of which she has
now, alas ! become an inhabitant, I have heard her express
the same sentiment which Mr. Tenbroeck mentions in his
letter to me, which she had expressed in conversation with
him and some others — but a few days before, nay but a day
or two before her unhappy fate, of her belief or impression
that her abode in this world would not be of long continuance
— in one instance her words in answer to an observation of
mine were — "if it should be as you say, thirty or forty years
— what a moment — what a span — what a vapor — how in-

3 (Srabeparb Romance 73

significant compared with that state of existence which
awaits me hereafter, how important that, of how little mo-
ment this." Amiable woman — Too soon — alas! for
thy friends, has thou realised thy apprehensions! Thy
mild and gentle spirit has taken its flight from the present
imperfect and chequer'd state of things to one more con-
genial with thy native purity, excellence & virtue. It is
ours to lament Hanah's death — tho' death to thee is great
gain. My friend — what a dream — what a meteor — what
a vapor — in the expressive language of your daughter, this
state of things really is — all that makes it desirable is, the
society and enjoyment of our friends — and we scarce find a
friend when death or some unfortunate occurence or other
snatches them from our embrace — so it is. It is our duty
to acquiesce — but I am only paining yours, and my own
feelings afresh, by recalling to recollection in so particular
manner, the magnitude of our loss. Accept my sincere
sympathy and condolence in the affliction of you and. yours,
and of my best regards and good wishes.
Farewell, God bless you,

Yours &c.

J. H. IMLAY.

Alentown, September 27th

1800.
New Jersey.

DEAR SIR, AND UNFORTUNATE FRIEND,

It is impossible for me to describe to you, the keen anguish
and sorrowful heart on the fatal news of the supreme dis-
pensation of Heaven upon your virtuous, worthy and truly
lovely daughter. My trembling hand dare hardly pre-
sume to address itself to you on this truly melancholy event
— but I rely entirely on your friendship to me.

74 Hegenbfii of a JBtortfjern Count?

Permit me therefore, my dear Sir,to mingle my abundant
tears, and sincere ones, with yours, and the desolated family.
Alas ! could I expect to hear such a dreadful recital, while I
was enjoying silently, and within myself, the sweet hope of
beholding once more — and within a short time — that un-
commonly amiable mortal — could I but express myself in
truer terms, or more sympathetical words, you would be
convinced of the sincere part I take with you, and your dear
family, on that unexpected, horrible ! event —

Be ye all convinced of my sincere sorrow, for your loss. I
remain with true sentiments of high esteem, for you all.
Your respectful servant

and afflicted friend,

HOUDIN.

Albany, September i5th, 1800.

Upwards of four score years passed over the village.
The changes are many ; success crowns the work of some,
and failure is the fate of others; families become pros-
perous and prominent and others long established in
the front rank of the social life of the town suffer vicissi-
tudes and are forced to part with their old homes and
materially modify their manner of life. Into these
years are woven many an event of interest, some tragic,
some amusing, and some scandalous, but all vital to the
actors. From them I have selected two for repetition
here; one a local tragedy and the other a state-wide
scandal.

The tragedy is comparatively recent; while the scan-
dal dates back a century and more :

a (Srabeparb Romance 75

About forty years ago a rich Southerner bought
Lakelands, remodeled it, and proposed to make it his
home. His family consisted of a wife, son, and daughter.
The boy was a little wild. At this time there was liv-
ing in the stone house near the head of the lake a very
attractive young woman with whom the son fell desper-
ately in love. She would, however, have none of him.
He persisted in his attentions until one beautiful Octo-
ber day he persuaded her to let him row her across the
lake to Hyde Hall. All the way he urged her to marry
him. As they reached the dock, he again asked her,
adding: "This is the last time." She persisted in her
refusal although he declared that he would shoot him-
self unless she accepted him. He stepped from the
boat, and standing on the dock blew out his brains.
Not long after, the house was vacated by the family,
sold, and never since has been occupied. Is it the
shadow of this tragedy which hangs over it? Ever
since it has been known as haunted. What form the
"hant" appears in I cannot tell you, as no one living
to-day ever spent a night in the house. There it has
stood, gray, gaunt, and abandoned, gazing over the lake
toward the scene of the tragedy.

Not long afterwards the boy's sister married and
within a year died. One morning, while driving her
team of horses at the Four Corners, the unhappy
mother dropped the reins and fell back dead. Her

76 Hegente of a J^ortfjent Cotmtp

husband lived on for a time by himself until one day
he was paralyzed and shortly died. Thus, in a few
years, what seemed to be a prosperous family had dis-
appeared entirely, and now almost is forgotten.

The scene moves back over a century; Richard
Fenimore Cooper, who died in 1813, is living with his
beautiful wife, Ann Gary, and a family of sons. Among
his intimate friends is George Clarke, the builder of
Hyde Hall. The relations between Ann and George
were the subject of some scandal before Richard died.
Very shortly after his funeral Ann went off with her
admirer. She told my father that they were married
at once; but the scandal was not quieted by the rumor
that the new husband had a wife and family in Eng-
land; as to them she said that he had secured an
American divorce before she married him.

Some seven or eight months after the death of Rich-
ard, Alfred Clarke was born. Was he a Clarke or a
Cooper? That was the question which convulsed the
society, not alone of Cooperstown, but of much of the
State for years. His mother declared that he was
Richard's son, but as he was born in lawful wedlock he
was legally a Clarke, the son of George.

In time another son was born and named for his
father, George. Alfred was one of my father's best
friends. As time went on, he grew more and more like
the Coopers until he became convinced that he really

& (Srabeparb Romance 77

was a Cooper, and he called himself Alfred Cooper Clarke.
That he was not a Clarke seemed to be accepted by his
legal father, as when he died he left Hyde Hall, and
most of his property, to his second son George. It was
a curious case of dual personality, for when some of the
English Clarke property passed to the eldest son of
George Clarke, it was Alfred who went to England and
got it as the eldest son born in lawful wedlock.

When his mother, Ann, died, she left her property to
Alfred; and it was Alfred's conviction that he was a
Cooper which led him to leave Swanswick and other
property to Theodore Keese and me on certain con-
tingencies; and it was the blunder of a lawyer which
prevented our inheriting it, as all the conditions which
attached to our intended inheritance were fulfilled.

SOME ABANDONED HOUSES

AFTER a day spent in driving over the more secluded,
but very beautiful, by-ways of the County, one is im-
pressed by the disappearance, almost accomplished, of
three of the most prominent features of old-time country
life; the country gentleman; the country tavern and the
country church. Perhaps they were so closely allied
that the vanishing of the first destroyed the other two.

All over the countryside are to be found the aban-
doned homes of one-time prosperous farmers; and fre-
quently the more pretentious houses of the well-to-do
land owner; the windows gone; the doors open and
swinging in the wind ; and the flowers still growing and
running wild in the old-time gardens.

The number of such abandoned places is appalling.
Each year some of them either collapse under the at-
tacks of the weather or burn up. In many of the more
remote spots nothing is left but a cellar and a few rose
bushes and apple trees, and great lilac bushes. Gradu-
ally the rural population is shrinking to a strip of land
along the better highways in the valleys.

Among the houses still standing are some of impor-
tance in their day ; the old stone house at Butts Corners ;

78

feome Sbanfcaneti gouges 79

"Col. Dunbar's house," a little to the west, which must
have been years ago a beautiful place, with its brick
main building and huge wooden additions, and great
trees on either side of the entrance. Now only the
brick part stands, trembling to its fall; the great trees
are only stumps ; while the wings can be traced, amidst
the briars, by the cellar walls and ruins of the huge
central chimneys.

There are still left some fine old frame colonial houses
here and there; one near Stoney Lonesome; one on the
Colliers road and others far back in the hills, among
them the one near Geoweys Pond. Their days are
numbered ; the best of workmanship and the finest ma-
terial, unaided by man, soon yield to the elements in our
northern climate.

One wonders why they were built ; and again why they
were abandoned. It is easy to see, in the imagination,
the one-time inhabitants; the gardens and living-
rooms gay with youth; the playing children; the pros-
perous men and women of middle life; and the older
ones with their knitting and books by the fireside and
on the porch. Where have they gone and why ? Have
conditions of life changed so as to eliminate forever
the country home?

When these great houses were built the owners
probably held considerable tracts of land; part they
cultivated and part they rented to farmers. Fuel was

8o Hesente of a Jlortfjern Count?

plenty and easily obtained from the woods, which came
down to the meadows, and labor was cheap and con-
tented with country life. The contrast between the
luxuries and pleasures of life in the country and that in
the smaller towns and cities was far less marked than
it is now.

By degrees the land ran out ; fuel became scarce and
dear; as did labor; savings were exhausted and the
young people, lonely and discontented, went to the
villages and cities. The more fortunate of the old
people went to the graveyard; the others to the poor-
house. I am told that the last occupant of Col. Dun-
bar's house died on the county-farm.

Although the country is dotted over by these gaunt
reminders of a life which has gone, in every stage of
ruin, there is very little known of their actual history,
and a singular dearth of legends such as might be ex-
pected to attach themselves to such romantic objects.
Most of the ghost stories and tales belong to the houses
still occupied, the others stand lonely and often for-
bidding, keeping within their empty walls and open
doors and staring windows the mystery of their past
and the story of their one-time occupants.

Col. Dunbar's house is an exception to this rule, as
about it hangs a tradition, common enough in some
neighborhoods, but unusual here — that of a secret
chamber: it is very nebulous, as is the story of the old

£>ome .atmnboucb ^outfetf 81

house. There is no such room in the part which still
stands, unless it is in the attic, which is wholly inacces-
sible, so if it existed it must have been in one of the
long-vanished additions. One story is that years ago
a spy was hidden in this room; who he was, by whom
hidden, from whom, and in what war are all alike for-
gotten. Another tradition which goes more into de-
tail, is, that about a century ago, either the owner of
the house or one of his immediate family, was im-
prisoned in Connecticut for some offense. Elaborate
plans were made for his escape, including a relay of
horses every five miles. When all was ready he fled,
dressed in an extra gown worn into the jail by his wife.
He was pursued by the sheriff and a posse. For a time
the chase was hot, but the fugitive, availing himself of
the fresh horses, gradually gained on his pursuers, who,
as my informant said, had only " jaded mounts." He
reached the Dunbar house far in advance and was
hidden in the secret room. For months he lay con-
cealed there, a "fugitive from justice," as the neighbors
still call him. His hiding place, I was told, was beside
one of the chimneys and had a scuttle opening on to the
roof through which, when all was quiet, he was in the
habit of escaping at night for exercise. This story
seems definitely to locate the hiding place as beside the
big chimney in the extension ; and it also tells of shelves
used for linen as helping in its concealment.

82 Hegento of a Jlortfjern Count?

It was the custom in this country to combine
wooden extensions with brick or stone main buildings,
and most of the old houses followed this habit. Perhaps
the funds of the owners became so impaired that a
cheaper form of construction was adopted or the idea
prevailed of a substantial main building for warmth
during the long cold winters, into which the family
withdrew, to blossom forth into the more commodious
wings with the arrival of spring. I can recall about
forty houses with field-stone main buildings and wooden
additions, still occupied.

On and near Angel Hill are many large old houses
long deserted and rapidly falling into ruin. One of
them is especially interesting as it was abandoned some
twenty-five years ago completely furnished, and even
to-day much of the furniture is left; the bedsteads and
feather beds are rotting on the bedroom floors ; carpets
are covered in places with growing weeds and grass;
great holes are in the floors; the roof and windows are
largely gone, and one who explores its mysteries takes
the chance of a bad fall.

The churches and the taverns lasted a little longer,
as they were generally in or near the small hamlets ; but
their time has come, and all over the country are closed
churches and inns. The hamlets have not escaped and
are rapidly shrinking.

I recall a beautiful old colonial church by a lakeside;

feome afcanboneb 3£ou*e* 83

the cushions are turned up in the pews to protect them
from dust; the melodeon stands by the pulpit; the
hymnbooks are in the racks; everything waits for the
congregation which never comes.

Many of the hamlets have almost disappeared. A
respect for their feelings prevents my calling the nearer
ones by name. Of the more remote "Welcome" is
typical ; it grew up around the junction of five roads ; a
church; a couple of shops; and perhaps a dozen houses
or so, with a post office and schoolhouse. It lies in
the bottom of a bowl-like valley and one looks up on
all sides to the horizon, outlined against the sky by
the rolling bare hilltops. The church is closed, and the
school; the post office has gone; the shop failed and
shut up, because, as the only visible inhabitant told us,
the people were too dishonest to pay their bills. Of the
houses, seven are abandoned. It was early on a beauti-
ful September afternoon ; not a soul was visible but our
informant, who was not a resident, but was taking care
of two old and infirm citizens of "Welcome." One of
the houses was a really beautiful old Colonial house,
spacious and in perfect condition. Its only surviving
occupant was an elderly woman, who failed to open her
door to repeated knockings. We asked the one visible
human being if she wasn't lonely and how long she
would stay; she said that she was, and that she didn't
think she could stay much longer.

84 Hegenbtf of a J^ortfjent County

When, on a second visit, we were admitted to the old
Colonial house, we found its sole occupant to be a de-
lightful old woman of well on toward four score years,
who invited us in and seemed glad of an opportunity
to see and talk to outsiders. She told us how she had
come there as a bride upwards of sixty years ago, and
showed us over the really fine house, which was about
a century old, and clean and neat as could be. Her
husband had died years ago and her children were either
dead or had long since moved to larger places; they
took her to live with them in the winter time, she said,
but every summer she returned alone to the old house.
We talked of the past in "Welcome" and she told us
how every seat in the abandoned church had been filled
on Sundays. When I spoke of the schoolhouse which
was falling down, she said sadly, ''There are no
children now."

The old people will die, perhaps have died ; someone
will close the houses, and " Welcome" will have nine,
instead of seven, of its dozen homes abandoned. No
wonder the cost of living goes up, when the productive
land steadily grows less.

We left "Welcome" and looked back down on it with a
feeling of relief, and even the short time we spent there
was enough to give us a restless desire to leave and a
dread of life in its silent and terrible loneliness. Truly
" Welcome" has become "Farewell."

£>ome atianboneb J^outfe* 85

The story of our little manufacturing villages is the
same; the factories have been forced by competition
to close and the workmen and women have moved
away.

We were rather rich in mills, and beautiful field-stone
ones at that. The great stone building at Phoenix,
after standing idle for years, was pulled down and used
to build the new hospital at Cooperstown ; the dam has
gone; the shop has fallen into the Susquehanna and
most of the little village is abandoned or fallen down.

Hope Factory still stands on the main road to Col-
liers— a beautiful stone building. We can only hope
that modern commercial life can find some use for it.
A quarter mile farther up the Oak Creek are the ruins
of the Otsego Paper Mill; little but a chimney is left.
Across the stream is Toddsville; the metropolis which
grew up about this mill and the Union and Hope
Factories. The workmen's houses are falling down, as
are some of the better ones, but the fine old stone "store"
still stands. The dam is gone, and of course with it the
mill pond, with its multitude of white pond lilies and
red cardinal plants.

Farther up the Creek are the broken dam and ruins
of the grist mill at Fly Creek and, opposite them, the
dilapidated saw mill. At Oaksville is a long vacant
factory — the dam is gone, but the stone and brick
buildings stand, and on the hill above them is the fine

86 3Ugenb£ of a J^ortfjcnt County

old stone superintendent's house, with its classical
portico.

Many a fortune has been made at these different
mills, and when I was a boy, they were still running at a
profit to their owners; but the times were already get-
ting difficult for them and they followed the country
gentlemen, and preceded the church and tavern, into
the limbo of things doomed by the ever-changing con-
ditions of modern life.

The story of Clintonville or, as it was often called,
Clinton Mills, is a good illustration of the fate which is
overtaking most of the small manufacturing hamlets of
the County. Less than fifty years ago, it was a thriv-
ing little village on the Susquehanna, some two miles
above Milf ord ; there was the usual dam and factory or
mill; a street lined with houses; a shop, and a railroad
station where the trains stopped regularly, and all the
life and activities of a thriving and contented rural
community. To-day the dam, the factory, and all of
the houses and buildings, except four, have vanished
completely. Of these four, two are abandoned and
falling down ; the other two are occupied, but when the
temporary demand for houses is over they too will be
vacated and fall into decay. I doubt if many of the
people living in the neighborhood to-day know that the
place ever had a name.
All these evidences of a dying countryside are sad,

&>ome SKmnboneb Jpou*e* 87

but they lend a sentimental charm to a beautiful
country.

One sometimes finds a more cheering reminder of the
past; in a very exclusive, walled-in burying ground near
the highway, on the east side of the lake, is a tomb-
stone which, after the usual inscription, giving the
date of death as upwards of a century ago, sets forth
the following all-sufficient epitaph:

She was born in Boston

Poor thing! Imagine the humiliation of having to die
in Otsego.

THE RED— THE BLACK— AND THE WHITE

MAN

AN old letter or document, an arrow or spearhead,
or any little personal belonging of those who are long
dead, and whom we never saw, often is sufficient to
arouse the imagination, and to call the owner or writer
back from oblivion, to move for a time through our
vision; while the image thus created may not be true
to the original in form or appearance, at least it has
some of his mental and moral traits, preserved by his
handiwork.

The thousands of letters and documents which have
survived from the years between 1750 and 1850, can
repeople for us this country, and clothe it with an air
of romance which may have been lacking, in the hard
lives of the frontiersmen and women. Just so our
Indian relics and legends fill the woods once more with
red huntsmen and warriors, squaws and papooses. We
cannot all see them, but the favored amongst us can;
it is one of the sublime gifts of the very young ; within
a year I saw the touzled yellow head of a youngster,
hidden in the tall grass, with ready bow and arrow,
watching for the expected red warrior.

88

, JSlacfe, anb JJUjttc iWan 89

The red man and the earlier settlers we know only
in this way. The black men, mentioned here, I knew
personally in every instance but one; and the growth
and changes of the town and country have taken place,
for nearly three score years, under my eye.

The red man left few traces of his stay of unknown
centuries at Otsego; the apple trees, and probably the
remains of a clearing near the entrance to the Cooper
grounds, were the only visible evidence of his occupancy
of the land for a part, at least, of each year; but hidden
by the woods and underbrush, there were other signs
of his occupation ; in places, just under the surface, were
found the ashes of his camp fires, and pieces of his rude
pottery, and of broken or lost stone implements and
weapons; in other places were the bones of the long
dead and forgotten residents.

There is the old Chief behind the River Street wall,
and two skeletons were found in the Fernleigh grounds.
In the fields, on the east side of the Susquehanna, in-
cluded in Fernleigh-Over, have been discovered great
numbers of Indian remains of all kinds. It was either
the scene of a prehistoric battle, or used as a burying
ground. I think that the evidence favors the battle-
field. Long ago, when it was merely farmland and
frequently cultivated, we used to follow the plow to
collect the stone weapons and tools which were turned
up every year. The large number of spearheads, arrow-

90 Heaenbg of a Jlortfjern Count?

heads, and stone axes, with occasional bones, suggested
a great battle.

Once, when a tree blew down, clutched in the fork of
two roots, and overgrown with bark, was an Indian
skull. A wounded warrior had dragged himself to the
foot of the tree and there, with his head pillowed be-
tween two roots, died.

Whether the mound in the northeast corner of this
field is an Indian burial mound or not has never been
determined, but in it have been reburied the bones from
time to time found in the neighborhood. The late Mrs.
Potter had the tablet which marks it carved and placed
where it is. Walking about the grounds one autumn
day, Dr. Battershall came upon this tablet and mound
and wrote on an old letter the following lines :

MORTUI TE SALUTAMUS

White Man, Greeting : We, near whose bones you stand,
were Iroquois. The wide land which now is yours was ours.
Friendly hands have given back to us enough for a tomb.

(Inscription, Fernleigh.)

Engraved upon a stone on a fair lawn,
Where, from the bosom of the mountain lake,
The Susquehanna takes its winding way,
And feels its first strange hunger for the sea,
I read these words, in which a vanished race
Gives salutation and pathetic thanks
For deathly wound and sepulture.

Alas!

JBlacfe, anb iHfjite JWan 91

Such meed and recompense to those swart tribes
Who held the marches of the wilderness
And threw their fealty in the quivering scale
That gave the Saxon empire of the West !

Their shades move on the pictured page of him,
Who, on this spot flung o'er their savagery
The Magic of Romance. Their stealthy feet
Creep through the enchanted forests of our youth,
But creeping ever to the eventide,
Where vanish shades of outworn types.

Farewell!

And greeting to yet happier hunting-grounds,
Sons of the twilight, martyrs of the dawn,
Caught in the logic and the thrust of things !
The weak give way that stronger may have room
For sovereign brain and soul to quell the brute.
Thus, in the epic of this earth, harsh rhythms
Are woven, that break the triumph-song with moans
And death cries. Still rolls the eternal song,
Setting God's theme to grander, sweeter notes,
For us to strike, righting old savageries
That linger in the twilights of the dawn.

Upon this sculptured stone, memorial

Of sacrificial life, the cosmic word

I read, the mystic music of the worlds.

WALTON W. BATTERSHALL.

Fernleigh, June 24, 1903.

Evidently arrow makers had lived and followed their
trade at two spots on the banks of the Susquehanna;
one on the east side, at the end of the grounds of River-

92 Hegenbi of a Jlortfjern Coutttp

brink, where a cool spring emptied into the river, and
the other, on the west bank, at the foot of a great pine,
the stub of which stood for years in the field just below
the old Hooker place. At each of them there was a
great accumulation of chips of flint and broken or par-
tially finished arrow and spear heads; they could be
gathered from the bottom of the river at any time.

In the Cooper burying ground, lying at right angles
to the graves and near the surface, is the skeleton of a
man. He was first disturbed when Susan Fenimore
Cooper's grave was dug. There was nothing found to
identify him. He was probably an Indian, but possibly
Levi Kelley who was hung for murder in the year 1827,
and is said to have been surreptitiously buried in the
graveyard.

By many historians Brant is considered the greatest
of Indian chiefs; he was an intimate friend of Sir
William Johnson and was the brother of Molly Brant,
Sir William's housekeeper, who was the mother of most
of Sir William's children ; and who may have been mar-
ried to Sir William by some Indian ceremony. If the
following "memorial" is true, Brant in some ways
shines by comparison with certain of his white con-
temporaries. It is endorsed, "A Memorial of John
Tunnicliff Sufferings"; is dated twenty years after the
sufferings complained of and shows, at least, a good
memory and a tenacious pursuit of compensation.

, Placfe, anb EHfjtte ftlan 93

A Memorandom of the sufferings & the Many losses Sus-
tained by the subscriber, from The hands of the Contenental
Troops &c. When Sir John Johnson and Several Others in
Try on County was disarmed, I with many Of the inhabi-
tants was Brought to Major Funday's on the Mohawk
River where we Took the Oath Newtrality and signed a
bond on promise of being protected.

On the loth day of August 1778 the inhabitants of our
Back Settlements was partly Obliged to fly from their
farms, while the other part was apprehended & Brougt
down Prisoners — together with our horses — Cows — &
Sheep — which were drove in the front while We prisoners
were Strongly guarded with fixt? Bayonets and if we did
Not Please the Captain and his party, with our Manner of
Traveling — we were obliged to mend our pace On the
point of their fixted Bayonets, — thus we were compeled to
march till we came Near Cherry- Valley where a halt was
made, until a drum & fife arived, — then we were conducted
to the Fort, by the Rogues March — when we came Near
the fort — we was drawn up in a line at which time — insult
followed insult, — the Officers & Soldiers first coming to one
— And telling him that he Should Be hanged — & then to
another & so on till the last pointing out the different deaths
we should Suffer, — when their threatnings and diversion
was over We was Commanded to March under a Strong
guard — towards albany — we did so — but was Ordered to
halt under the Gallows, — where we received another sort
of ill treatment — Ruff Challinging the Cloths upon our
Backs & Saying we Stole them from the solders — by this
time a large Mob was collected by which we were Con-
duced—with Shouts— Huzzas Throwing Of dirt & Musick
playing the Rogues March till we was Locked up in a
dungeon — their kept Close till the remainder of our property
was Wantonly taken.

94 Hegetrtig of a JBtortfjern Cotmtp

My dwelling house — deary house Barn Stables & Sheep
house all consumed by fire. My Crops of hay corn &
Buildings, with my household goods & farmary working
tools — together with a large Quantity of good Cheese with
a eleven Stands of Beehives well filled — the which at that
time was worth one Thousand pounds — all intirely dis-
trowed, — My Neighbours & fellow Sufferers Oblidged to
support themselves by working — from house to house — &
to accomplish the whole — and a rightfull Coullouring on
their unjust proceedings — were published in the Common
Print as Enemies to the country.

The above Mentioned Cows were Sixteen in number all
very good — which was drove Before me to Cherry- Vally —
which I have Never seen Since — Nor received any thing in
lew of them — the Number of Sheep that was then taken
from me was forty three — I suppose Equal to the Best
sheep in America — one of which was an English Ram Which
Cost me a Journey to England — Six lambs I purchased
But five of them died On the voyage — My Young stock of
horned Cattle (Seven in Number) I received again the
which I found on the south east side of hudsons River — by
the help of a Replevy & the Sheriff of Albany — this Young
stock was put to grass by William Hudson Ballard — Cap-
tain of the sixth Massachusetts Rigement — who com-
manded the party of soldiers which took Me & my property
from my house — Some part of my horses I got Again & a
part I received some pay for — the Commissioners used me
well they said Not any Body had any Business with me —
Mr. Jerr Van ransselear went to the Governor To know
what to do — the Governour ordered General Starks to be
sent out of albany and said he was as bad as the Indians —
John M. Beckman being present the Tears came in his eyes
when he heard my Complaint — Matthew Visher said I must
after The war Sew any one that had any of My property

, antJ JUfjite jfttan 95

in his hand or had been possest with it — Said I had a Just
right to Sew for it — and if I could not find such people —
They would pay me for it — but I said Your Money is grow-
ing worse & might be But little help — he said I should be
paid with such Money as would Buy me as good a Stock as
I had lost — this hath been the Cause of my Not seeking Relief
Sooner — for I was very desirous of knowing what was be-
come of Wm. Hudson Ballard Who was the Man that com-
manded the Soldiers to take Me & my Property — the last
year I was told he was dead — as I am likely to be caled upon
for quit Rents for my Estate which I was at that time in
possession — part of which is sold to put me & my Family
in a way to live — I was kept off my farm for the space of
Seven Years — Which on My return was a Bed of Briers —
without either fence or Building I was obliged to sell up-
wards of a thousand acres of land to help — put my family
farm & Stock in a way to live — But that was not Sufficient
— for the farm is Still Much in debt — I have Not given any
deed, to Subject those who purchased to pay the Quit
Rents — this is in danger of Ruening Me — who was the cause
of sending Such a gang of soldiers which consisted of old
privateers men — for had these been our own Militia we
could have found them again after the war — if honesty &
Industry is to give place to such usage — then Roguery is
the only thing that Will flourrish — when I was in my
Strength & prosperity in the space of Twenty Years I
Never Cleared so Much value as I lost By Captain Ballard.
At the Time Springfield was cut of — the Indians Came
Back past My house with Several of the Inhabitants
Prisoners — as soon as the first Indians came up they said
we are Come for some of your Stock — for the prissonors to
live upon — or we must unavoidably Starve — I told them
I had taken the Oath of Newtrality & signed a Bond & was
fully Resolved Not to do any thing to the contrary — I

96 ICesenb* of a J^ortfjern Count?

asked them who was their Commander they said he was
behind — when he came up they pointed to an Indian which
they said was Captain Brant — I told him My Condition
& Beged him to go his way — he said he could not his
prisoners must starve — upon My giving him flat denial —
one of the party came to me & said for God's sake what are
you about if you have any regard for life let them have
some stock — Captain Brant said if you will go & your
family & stock you shall be paid for what we take — and
what is left behind your losses shall be made good & you
shall be well used. I said I had Rather die on the spot —
when I see I could not get shut of them I told one of -the
Boys to turn out a Couple of cows — but I neither would
Turn them out nor set any price on them, but Brant said I
should be paid for them — soon after peace was proclaimed
— then Captain Brant Sent me down Twelve pounds
Halifax Money for my Two Cows.

JOHN TUNNICLIFF.
Otsego June 30th AD 1798

Poor John Tunnicliff ! He cuts rather a sorry figure !
Evidently a tory, and apparently an associate of Sir
John Johnson's and doubtless of Walter Butler's he
emerges from obscurity and passes before us merely
because his petition has survived; and to emphasize
the inferiority of some of his race to the vanished red
man.

The two following documents are all else we know of
him. He evidently suspected his neighbors near Cana-
joharie. We wonder whether he ever found his cows
or got paid for them, and can't help hoping that he

J?lacfe, anb JUfjtte iflan 97

didn't. He must have lived somewhere not far from
the village of Springfield and probably between it and
the Mohawk. He went up and down through the
wilderness seeking his property :

The Bearer John Tunnicliff has our Permission to go to
the House of one Robert Nellis, or wherever he may be in
Tryon County for the purpose of obtaining his Property in
the Possession of the said" Nellis in an amiable way without
having recourse to law for a recovery of the same. This
pass to continue in force for the space of fourteen days from
the date.
Albany yth October 1780

MAT VISSCHER ) Commissioners
SAML STRINGER > for

ISSAC D. FONDA ) Conspiracies

By Samuel Stringer John M. Beeckman & Jer V. Rens-
selaer Commissioners for detecting & defeating Conspiracies
fee.

Permission is hereby Granted to John Tunnicleaf &
John Rowbottom to pass and repass from this City to the
Butternuts in Tryon County, they having given surety for
their peaceable Conduct and to Return again to this their
present place of abode on or before the eighth day of
October next.

Given under my hand by order of the Board

JER V. RENSSELAER one of
the Board.

Albany 2ist Sep, 1780.
To all concerned

98 Hesenbtf of a Jlortfjem Count?

On a very early list of the owners of the Croghan
Patent, made by R^ Smith, "John Tuniclift" is set
down as owning three thousand acres "near the
Oaksne," but his name does not appear on the old maps.

The following bill rendered at about the time of
John's misfortune shows the activities of the militia
and how they were fed :

June 29th 1777 General Harkemans Bill then sent by
General Harkemans desire 3 1 ft). Cheses to Chery Valey for
Ofisers on thare Persueat after the Indians on the Susque-
hanna.

Wate 50 ft), at on shilling 2.10.0

I supose as the Melishe might be 250 men
Which staid all night 10.0.0

I2.IO.O

June 29th 1777, on thare return they Eat me a Larg Oven
full of Bred and as much Chees as tha Liked and 18 Cows
milk Night and Morning and all night 17 Horses in the
Moeing ground.

Brant did burn Springfield, but no one was killed
and, had he been in command when Cherry Valley was
attacked, probably many of the horrors of that massacre
would have been prevented.

The black man almost has disappeared from our coun-
try; where once he filled an important place. In the
early days negroes were bought and sold and most of
the colored people of the village were descended from

Bcti, $lacfc, anb JEfjttc jfflan 99

slaves brought here by the early settlers. Judge
Cooper brought some with him as did the Husbands
and other families. Among the existing old papers are
many bills of sale of negroes, men, wenches, and children.
It was a kindly servitude, where the slave had all the
comforts of life and often the affection and friendship of
the master.

Joseph Stewart, "The Governor," was for 30 years
butler and body servant at Otsego Hall and its prede-
cessor. He now lies in the corner of the Cooper burying
ground, while "Joe Tom" and "Jennie York" lie in the
easterly part of Christ Churchyard, in what was long
and disrespectfully known as "Nigger Heaven."

Jennie's unique epitaph "She had her faults, but was
kind to the poor ' ' has made her famous. For years all of
it had sunk out of sight except the words : "Jennie York :
She had her faults." Poor Jennie! She was an in-
veterate thief, but stole largely to give to her poorer or
less fortunate friends.

Of all the colored folk of Cooperstown "Joe Tom"
easily stands first. He once belonged to the Husband's
family. Never was a blacker black man, never a bigger
one in every way, and never a more talented one. He
played the triangle for young and old to dance; he
cooked at all picnics, and his chowder was wonderful;
he rowed the boat and shouted to Natty Bumppo op-
posite the echo; he rang the church bell and warmed

ioo Hegente of a JBtortfjern Coimtp

the church, and, with the same cheerful smile and kindly
manner, he dug the grave and buried the dead — or those
of them who died in the Episcopal faith or had other
good claim to a place in Christ Churchyard. Like
most of his race, in those days, he was a great respecter
of persons, and as he grew older more and more drew a
sharp social line.

When his time came, and he joined his people in
"Nigger Heaven," all the town mourned, and the youth
of the village, to whom dollars looked bigger than cart
wheels, bought and put up his stone by subscription.
I can still hear his triangle tinkle; see his gleaming
teeth, and hear his stentorian voice calling off the ' Ag-
gers" of the square dances.

Looking back through the vista of nearly three score
years, one can see many other dusky faces — with glit-
tering teeth and bright eye — all kindly — all helping to
make life attractive: there was "Joe," old Joe Tom's
daughter, and Charlie Burhans. Charlie never was
young so far as I can remember. He was the great
Nimrod of his people. He resembled a huge bundle of
rags. Apparently he never discarded any clothing,
but merely added anything he acquired from time to
time. He had an enormous muzzle-loading gun, and
the most wonderful and indescribable stutter. When
he tried to speak his whole face shook and his jaw fairly
danced. Charlie's favorite game was ground hogs, of

, JSlacb, anil UHljitc jtflan 101

which he was very fond. Unhappy was the woodchuck
which Charlie located. He always got him in the end.
One would see, in a field, a motionless drab object,
which might be a stone or a pile of old cloth or bags,
but which was Charlie. It moved slowly and at long
intervals — for the woodchuck it was death, certain
and relentless.

Henry Williams was an aristocrat among his people
— tall, straight, and handsome ; he hunted with the white
sportsmen of the village, particularly with old Dan
Boden. Many are the partridges which I have seen
them flush in Bowers' woods along the river and lake ;
Hen, with the dog, would follow the woods while Boden
poled a boat and shot over the water. They were a
striking pair; Boden with his white hair, tall and
slender, and as good-looking for one race as was
Williams for the other.

In those times democracy reigned, at least among the
whites. There played with us a little black boy,
Johnnie Jackson, who felt his color so much that he
used to say that, if it would make him white, he would
willingly be skinned alive. What became of Johnnie and
Hen Williams I don't know — they just faded out of life.

Another character of the colored people was Black
Dick. He looked after old William Averell and drove
his team of black^coach horses and great coach, so large
that it was familiarly known as "the Ark."

102 Hegenb* of a J^ortftern Count?

Dick was the last of the old colored body servants
who made life easy and pleasant for their masters.
When years ago "Marse Averell" died and was buried
by old "Joe Tom" in Christ churchyard, Dick was
inconsolable. Soon stories were being whispered about
town of a ghostly figure seen in the churchyard, which
seemed to rise from the ground and move slowly about.
Many townspeople claimed to have seen it, and the timid
avoided the streets about the graveyard after dark.

Those were the days of real darkness too ; the streets
were only lighted, here and there, by a kerosene lamp,
and the wayfarer after dark carried a lantern, generally
with a candle in it. The writer well remembers the
blackness of those nights, an impenetrable blackness
which seemed to rise before one like a wall ; this gave a
ghost a great advantage.

The stories of the "hant," seen moving in the depth
of the graveyard, were so persistent, that finally a com-
mittee of the braver spirits of the town decided to spend
a night among the graves watching. In due time they
were rewarded; a shadowy form was seen to rise and
move about old Averell's grave. After the first shock
was over, they closed in on the ghostly visitant and
found old Black Dick; faithful even after death, he
crept nightly to his master's grave, and watched and
mourned over it. His grief had unsettled his mind,
and he lived but a short time.

, anb ZJUntc jftlan 103

These Red Men and Black Men were — many of them
—white in heart and soul, more so perhaps than some
of the dominant race, which gradually crowded them
out of our countryside.

The books of Judge Cooper and of the Settlement
Shop teem with intimate details of the early life of the
village and county. In one is an agreement of employ-
ment, which is a bit of a shock to us in its recognition
of the personal liberty of the employed in allowing him
"the last day in each month in which to get drunk."
An honest recognition of human frailty and of one of
the very common pleasures of frontier life in those days.

Judge Cooper, when he rented his house for the
winter of 1798, paid two dollars a week board for any
members of his family who remained in it and three
shillings extra per person when he "makes a dinner for
his friends " and "on all occasions finds his own liquors."

In one is written the contract for all the carpenter
work on the Old Stone House. It is worth repeating
as showing the informality of such transactions in those
days. The house is here to speak for the honesty of the
contractor.

Articles of Agreement made this fifth day of November,
1803, Between William Cooper and Cyrenus Clark — viz:
the said Cyrenus Clark agrees to do all the Carpenter and
Joiner work that is and ought to be done of in and to a cer-
tain Stone House that the said William is now about erecting

104 Uegenbs of a Jfrortfjent Count?

on the corner of Water and Second Streets in length forty
two feet and in Breadth Thirty six feet to be finished in a
masterly and workmanlike manner from the bottom of the
Seller to the turning of the Key of the Front Door. The
work to be done in the following manner — good and work-
manlike stairs from the Seller to the Trap Door on the Roof
— to have four Rooms on the first Floor a hall and China
Room to be wainscotted with Pine Work and every other
way finished as a House wherein the said William now
lives. The second story to be laid off with a Hall and five
Rooms and finished in like manner as the house wherein the
said William now lives. There are to be nine windows in
front, four windows in the Gable and East besides the
Garret Windows and two in the Garret in the West End,
five windows in the rear. The said William Cooper to find
all the materials for said House of every kind and the
said Cyrenus Clark to find himself and hew all Timber for
said House. The Front Door to have a handsome Portico
with seats. Two outside Seller Doors and the said Cyrenus
is to receive for all said work five hundred Dollars.

WILLIAM COOPER
CYRENUS CLARK

The miscellaneous character of the currency in cir-
culation in Cooperstown, in 1796, is shown by a deposit
sent to an Albany Bank by Judge Cooper :

2560 Dolls, in Silver
935>^ " " Paper
540 Crowns
36 E. Guineas
7 Half "

, JSlacfe, anb Wjite jfttan 105

Half Joes £i734-i2

15 French Guineas
6^ Pistoles
i Moidore
The cash taken at the Bank 4,461 Dolls, and 50 cts.

A cosmopolitan settlement: I doubt if New York
could do much better to-day. There should be added
to this list, Pork, Ashes, Maple Sugar, and Wheat, all
of which passed as currency — but not at the Bank.

Here are some things told by the account book of
the Settlement store :

Charity Graves bought four pair of stockings for
£i. II sh. in 1807; Ralph Worthington bought a quart
of rum for himself on June 27, 1807, for 2 s & 2 d and a
piece of ribbon for his wife at 6d; On June 29, Abner
Graves had a pint of rum for i sh ; Abner had rum and
brandy and sugar every few days. Trinity Church
had an account and once, at least, bought rum, but
most of its purchases were for Christ Church building.
Recompense Graves was a great buyer of rum and sugar
and tea. A quart of rum lasted about two days. He
or she, I know not which, was fond of fine clothes, as
the account opens with eighteen yards of muslin at 2
sh. a yard and closes with three and one half yards of
velvet at 9 sh. a yard.

The account books of those days were quite gossipy
and went much into detail. We know from them for

io6 ILegenbi of a Jlortfjern Count?

whom the purchases were made, and what the debtor
did and where he lived :

Herman Pier of Pierstown bought an Umbrella for
19 sh. John M. Bowers bought "3^ yds. of 'Velvet'
Ribbon for Mrs. B." in Feby. 1807; "i Ib. Hyson Tea
for Felix 12 sh." and on May 7 "i Umbrella for self
19 sh." "Mrs. Ann Carey of Springfield" and Miss
Carey bought great quantities of gloves and household
supplies. Ziba Roberson bought silk for his wife.
Judge Cooper bought many things for " Betty" and
"Sarah" and Mrs. Ransom and some things for Allen
and gave a pair of blankets to Walker; all in 1807.

The "Waste Book" kept by R. R. Smith when he
ran the Settlement store and dated 1790-2 is less in-
timate in its entries but curious as showing frontier
prices:

John Rooseboom paid 8 sh. for a shovel and Jacob
Morris 10 sh. I d for a pair of shoes. Rum in those
years cost 5 sh & 6d. a gallon, and there was an immense
quantity sold. Tea was 3 sh 6d a pound and stockings
5 sh & lod a pair. Calico was 5 sh. a yard and thimbles
3d. A spelling book cost I sh. 8d (which may explain
some bad spelling) and Blankets £i 12 sh. a pair.

Other things than books tell tales of those times:
two little silver spoons — tied with a pink ribbon and
marked "H. D.," small, light, very thin, and showing
the marks of teeth in the bowls — vividly suggest their

, JBlacfe, anb Hfflfjite iWan 107

one-time owner, Helen Dunbar. When she lived and
died the spoons unfortunately cannot tell us, but we
know where — in Colonel Dunbar 's old house, part brick
and part wood, now abandoned; the brick part standing
with open doors and windows; surrounded by its over-
grown gardens and lawns; its ornamental trees cut
down ; its wooden additions vanished and its great out-
buildings flattened to the ground. Somehow these
spoons have the magic touch to restore the great house
and its surroundings, and we see it again teeming with
life. Among the phantoms, Helen Dunbar, small,
dainty, attractive, surrounded by friends and admirers,
without a thought of the dismal fate the future held
for the old house.

Then there are six great silver forks which tell an-
other story. They are marked " M " f or ' ' Morehouse ' '
and belonged to the builder of Woodside. They nearly
cost their owner his election years ago. In those days
two -pronged forks, of base metal, were good enough for
anyone, and four-pronged silver forks were the badge
of intolerable aristocratic tendencies.

In the heat of the campaign, Judge Morehouse's
opponent made against him the terrible charge of being
at heart an aristocrat, and, in proof of it pointed to
these heavy four-pronged silver forks which he accused
the Judge of actually using at his daily meals.

The battle waged fiercely, but Judge Morehouse won.

io8 Hegenbg of a JBtortljent Count?

After his victory he gave a great reception to his friends
and opponents. It was doubtless one of those old-
fashioned country parties, where the first guest arrives
about noon and ties his team to a tree, and the last
leaves about two A.M. In the center of the dining-
room, in open and jeering defiance, hung from the ceil-
ing, a dozen of those heavy four-pronged silver forks.

It was Judge Morehouse who gambled away Wood-
side at Hyde Hall, and who after moving out never
looked at it until he was able to buy it back again. It is
said that when daily he crossed Main Street he always
turned his face to the west so as not to see his old home.

The village of Cooperstown was favored, beyond
most towns of its size, in the character of its residents
and visitors. Among the former was a long list of very
able and well-known men and the latter included some
of the best known men of their times, here and abroad.
Its hospitality was most lavish, its society delightful and
cultured, and the struggle for life and money, if it ex-
isted, kept well in the background. The churches were
numerous and prosperous; the former due to Judge
Cooper's announcement that he would give a lot to any
religious society which would put up a building. One
of the treats of my youth was to see the Baptists
dipped in the Susquehanna at the outlet of the lake.
We always went hoping that one at least would slip
from the parson's grasp and drift off down the river;

, JBlacfe, anb JUfnte dfWan 109

but I don't remember that any ever were lost in this
way.

The town in those days was relatively and actually
a much more important place than it is now. All of
the big houses, now closed for most of the year, then
were the homes of their owners and open and occupied
all the time except for an occasional trip away by some
of the family. There were no factories in the village,
but it was the market town of a very rich and prosper-
ous farming community. The Main Street, from the
Cooper grounds west, was lined with hitching posts,
and, on Saturday afternoons, every one had a team
tied to it while the farmer and his wife, and often his
children, did their shopping.

For years hops made this country rich, and built
many of the great farmhouses still standing. The
Otsego County hop was considered the best grown in
the world. Every one grew hops and it was thought
that they couldn't be grown anywhere in this country
except in our neighborhood. Extraordinary profits
were made and it was not unusual for a hop grower to
make the value of his farm out of one crop. Prices
once reached one dollar and sixty cents a pound and
the cost of production was about twelve cents. The
crop was a very speculative one, which added to its
interest. Buyers came from everywhere and thou-
sands of " pickers" from the neighboring cities.

1 10 Hegente of a Jlorrtjent Count?

This hop-picking time was not without its suppressed
excitements. Much hard liquor was absorbed and
the usual number of free rights resulted. Before and
after the actual picking began and finished, great crowds
of tramps and city toughs gathered in camps in the
woods and rumors of intended raids on the town were
frequent. The law-abiding citizen got out and oiled his
revolver and became an actual menace to his neighbor.

The police force showed unwonted activity and the
oil lamps were allowed to burn all night, instead of
only until eleven P.M., the normal retiring hour.

The police force of those days was unique. It com-
bined inefficiency with charity. There were two mem-
bers, both cripples, who patrolled the town together,
during the perilous days of "hop picking." One of
them had one leg and two arms, and carried a lantern —
the other had two legs and one arm and carried a club.
However, they proved ample protection against the
raids which never came off. Many a time has the
writer, with his companions, listened to the tales of ad-
venture of this patrol, told on a street corner by the
dim light of their lantern.

Hop City vanished with the passing of the hop. Its
buildings lined the river road from the Fly Creek road
to that to Phoenix. It was on the land of "Jimmy"
Clark — perhaps the largest hop grower in the neighbor-
hood. He had well over a hundred acres in his yards

&eb, JSlacfe, anb TOtte jKIan 1 1 1

and employed between six and seven hundred city
pickers. They had to be housed and fed and taken
care of. To meet this demand, Hop City grew up. It
had its jail, its court room, its restaurants and, of
course, its dwellings. Jimmy organized a rough and
ready municipal government. Justice was adminis-
tered and order maintained by selected members of as
tough a community as ever collected anywhere.

The great weapon of government was the retention
of the pickers' pay until the season was over, and they
themselves actually on the special train for home.
Then when the train started the pay was distributed.
The pickers were more attracted by the life in the
country and the gayeties of the season than by the
money earned. Everything was furnished them —
transportation, food, housing, and amusements. Those
were dark days for the housewives of Cooperstown as
all the "help" insisted on the privilege of going "hop-
picking."

Then the change came; it was found that inferior
hops could be grown on the Pacific Coast and elsewhere.
Our Otsego growers were undersold and gradually the
hop industry shrank; the growers failed and the yards
were plowed up. Farms, which in the writer's youth
changed hands readily at twenty-five thousand dollars,
now fail of a buyer at five. Notwithstanding its specu-
lative character, the days when "Hops were King"

1 12 Hegente of a Jfrortfjern Count?

were the Golden Age of Otsego County and Coopers-
town. With the collapse came poverty to many —
farms were abandoned and money loaned on them was
lost.

Cooperstown had its land boom in the seventies, when
it was really a great summer resort; prices soared and
the tale ran that "Josh" Storey went up one side of a
street and Frederick Phinney up the other buying every-
thing at the seller's price.

The town was crowded with summer guests, and the
lake with boats. All the desirable spots along the
river bank were labeled: "Lovers' Retreat," "Calypso's
Bower," "Shady Nook," and similar signs attracted
the idle pleasure seeker.

One case of typhoid fever following a stay at the
principal hotel punctured this bubble. More money
was lost. Then began the gradual development of
the town and country along the lines which have
brought them the prosperity they now enjoy.

The various histories of the town are filled with
anecdotes of its more distinguished visitors and resi-
dents, and to them the reader is referred with the hope
that these sketches may have excited sufficient interest
to induce him to delve farther into our local history
and traditions, and perhaps even search for himself
among the musty and yellowed documents and letters,
now laid aside, but once such a real part of someone's life.

A GREAT HIGHWAY

THE earliest highways followed the important
streams; partly because of the easy grade, but prin-
cipally because the first settlements were on the rivers.
When the land lying away from the streams began to
be settled, the new towns were reached by short roads
running back to them from the nearest river. In this
way the settlements on Otsego Lake first were reached
by a road from the Mohawk to the head of the lake,
near Hyde Hall, and then by boat down the lake. In
1790 the road from East Springfield to Cooperstown
was built down the east side of the lake and at about
the same time, or a little later, the road to Cherry
Valley was made. It is likely that there were very
rough wood roads in use on the line of many of the
present routes before real roads were opened.

When traffic justified it, about 1798, the Second
Great Western Turnpike, so called, was built. It ran
west from Albany, paralleling the Mohawk Highway,
and linking together by one great road the various
settlements along the ridge between the Mohawk and
the Catskills; among them Duanesburg, Esperance,
s 113

1 14 Hegento of a JBtortftern Count?

Sloansville, Carlisle, Sharon, Sharon Springs, Cherry
Valley, the Springfields, Richfield, and so on to Syracuse.

The route is a beautiful one ; following the top of the
ridge until it sinks into the sand plains west of Albany.
The views are wonderful in places ; the most celebrated
is between Cherry Valley and Sharon where the whole
Mohawk Valley lies spread out under the eyes of the
traveler, hemmed in by the distant Adirondacks.

It is hard for us to realize that the building and open-
ing of a great highway, a century and a quarter ago,
was as important an event as the building of a railroad
or great canal is to-day, perhaps even more so, as roads
were few then.

As first planned, it was to run "westward from the
house where John Weaver now lives in the town of
Watervliet to the house where John Walton now lives
in the town of Cherry Valley" ; the toll gates were to be
at intervals of ten miles and everything that moved
was to pay toll, except churchgoers on their way to and
from public worship and persons going to or from any
mill; those in search of spiritual or physical food were
not taxed. The immediate purpose of the incorpora-
tion of the highway was to raise funds for the rebuild-
ing of the bridge over the Schoharie-kill at Esperance
which had been carried away by the ice in the Spring
of 1798. Later the road came east to Snipe Street in
Albany and west to Syracuse.

£1 <!5reat ^igfttoap 115

This road was built by the corporation and a good deal
of the stock went to pay the builders. Judge Cooper
built six miles and was paid in stock. I do not know
its value then, but in 1802, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer
paid $1250 cash for fifty shares. Its par value was
forty dollars in 1799, and was later increased to seventy
and then to ninety. When the tolls collected amounted
to sufficient to repay the cost of the road the corpora-
tion was to be dissolved and the road itself revert to
the people of the State. This day never arrived, but
some years ago the road was abandoned by the Com-
pany and thus returned to the State.

When the road was finally finished and opened to
travel, the enthusiasm of its owners was great; they had
visions of tremendous earnings and began to make
plans for spending them; the bridges were all to be of
stone, and one enthusiast planned lighting the highway.
His optimism can be appreciated when we remember
that light in those days was supplied by whale oil lamps
and tallow dips. It makes one's head swim to calcu-
late the number of either required per mile. Just east
of the Fort Plain road crossing there is still a stone arch
over a stream; the only stone bridge between Albany
and Richfield Springs.

Wild as these dreams were, traffic seemed to justify
them for a time; wagons poured into Albany, with all
the products of the western land, in a continuous stream,

1 1 6 ILtQtrib* of a JHorfljern Count?

and returned loaded with the requirements of the
settlers which their own neighborhood did not supply.
Great droves of cattle and sheep followed one another
into the city; some of them containing over five hundred
head.

It was the boast of the stockholders that there was a
tavern for every mile of the road. This boast at least
was true, for a few years ago, I was told by the aged
daughter of the keeper of the last of the taverns at
Carlisle, that between that town and Albany, a distance
of thirty- six miles, there had been thirty-seven taverns.

Her account of the travel over the road when at the
height of its glory, as told to her by her father, was most
interesting; twenty stages with six horses each passed
the tavern daily; ten each way; the loaded wagons
traveled in fleets often as many as twenty-five or
thirty in company. In the little town of Carlisle there
were then four hotels, of which but one remains. When
I last passed it there was plainly visible in the colored
glass window over the main door, a clean-cut hole about
as big as a quarter ; this my informant called my atten-
tion to and explained as follows :

In the old stage coach days, one morning, an old and
expert driver drew up in front of the door with his six
horses, and while waiting for his passengers, he had a whip
with a long lash with a knot on the end of it, he gave it a
couple of twirls above his head, and then a crack, and the

a (Srcat ^igfjtoap 117

knot on the end of the lash cut that hole in the glass, as
keen as a bullet and never cracked the glass at all.

I have the account kept by Judge Cooper with one of
the wagons and teams which passed wearily back and
forth over this crowded highway. The wagons, like
the stages, had names. This one was called "Colum-
bus" and the account is headed "Collumbus the wagon
in account with Wm. Cooper"; it cost $800.00 on Oct.
28, 1801; it was driven by Michael, whose great coat
and stockings cost $5.00 ; then follows a detailed account
of its loads, earnings, and expenses. On November
5th it brought a load weighing "37 hundred" at 6/ a
hundred, $25.25; on November 14 it brought a "cask
of wine, Pipe of Brandy & Hogshead of rum for 27.75."
Sometimes the Columbus carried a small load and some-
times "Returned empty," but generally a load averaged
about twenty-five dollars, and the trip seems to have
taken three or four days each way. On Aug. 31, 1802,
is entered: "Return load a Tomb Stone," and as no
charge is made, it is probable that this was the stone
which still marks the spot by the road side where
Hannah Cooper was killed, on its way from Phila-
delphia to Morris.

Occasionally another wagon described as the "Old
Smashpipe" is mentioned. Perhaps it was such a
rough rider that the driver's pipe was smashed between
his teeth.

1 1 8 Eegenbg of a Jlortfjern Count?

The heyday of the turnpike's prosperity as a great
broad highway ended with the opening of the canal
and the building of the Mohawk and Hudson railroad
from Albany to Schenectady ; the former diverted much
freight and some passenger travel and the latter a great
many of the passengers of the coaches; but for some
years travel continued by stage and private conveyance
to the then popular resorts of Sharon and Richfield
Springs; however, the road was neglected; the popu-
larity of Sharon faded ; the farms and taverns along the
wayside were abandoned, and the old road became al-
most impassable between Sharon Springs and Albany.
Little is left to indicate its past glory to the traveler
who takes his springs, if not his life, in his hands and
drives over it to-day. The busy throngs of men,
wagons, and beasts have disappeared, and with them
nearly all the taverns; at Carlisle, Sloansville, and
Esperance still are interesting old inns standing and
open, and at Springfield is one long closed. Here
and there along the right of way is a beautiful house,
occupied, and more frequently an abandoned one, or
the cellar which marks the site of some old building.

For miles the broad overgrown right of way runs
through deserted lands, lined by falling walls, and un-
marked by even a telegraph pole. Everywhere, how-
ever, is beauty, and from the time that the road rises
from the sand plains of Albany, a lover of nature, and of

3 <@reat Jfrtgljtoap 1 19

history, can find few more unusual and interesting
trips ; straight as an arrow it runs to the west ; only at
Esperance it turns sharply to the right to cross the
Schoharie Creek on a wonderful old enclosed bridge,
which must have many years over a century to its
credit.

Esperance itself is beautiful: its Common; its old
inn; its interesting buildings, stone church, and great
overhanging elms distinguish it from the run of villages.
Sloansville and Carlisle with their taverns and colonial
houses well repay a visit, as do many of the small
hamlets.

At Sharon Springs is the great Pavilion Hotel, nearly
a century old, with its long colonnade overlooking the
Mohawk Valley; it is a dignified survivor of other days
and other manners. For many years it was, perhaps,
the best known resort in the State of New York and
one of the most celebrated in the country. Its "gal-
lery" was crowded with politicians and prominent men
and women ; the former in white duck trousers and black
coats and the latter in hoop skirts. At evening the
rows of chairs, four in number, ran from end to end of
the piazza,, and while the occupants discussed politics,
news, horses, and wine, they looked out over a wonderful
expanse of hill and valley ; the parlors, brilliantly lighted
by kerosene lamps and candles, were filled with dancers.
During the day they drove, rode, flirted, bathed, and

120 Hegenb* of a JBtortfjern Count?

drank — mineral and fire water. It is hard to realize
that there was no golf or tennis, and only the begin-
nings even of croquet, in those days to make summer
life interesting and wholesome.

Parts of the old road have been rebuilt recently, and
in time it may be restored its entire length. If it can
be saved from the vandalism of the State road contrac-
tor and turned into a stone and gravel way it will again
become popular as the most beautiful route west from
Albany, and, as it always has been, the shortest to many
of our interior towns. When the time comes that the
motorist thinks of something more than speed and dis-
tance the remaining old taverns may once more be
filled with guests and the "Ford" and its kindred take
the place of the "coaches and six," "Collumbus, the
wagon," "Old Smashpipe, " and their long forgotten
companions.

Beyond Sharon is Cherry Valley with its memo-
ries of Brant and Butler and the victims of the massacre ;
then come all the Springfields: East, Middle Village,
Center, and Springfield proper. The latter, too, was
raided and burned by the Indians, and has all the
appearance of never having recovered from the shock.

Here we turn south for our own village, and the
Second Great Western Turnpike goes on its way west —
out of our story.

A LOST ATMOSPHERE

ELECTRIC lights, concrete pavements, and new
women are destructive of that indescribable some-
thing called atmosphere; and probably also it is
too intangible to appeal to our modern ideas and
tastes.

Whatever the cause may be, it has gone from our
village, except where it lingers in certain neighbor-
hoods: the old Presbyterian and Episcopal churches
with their graveyards ; along River Street and about the
corners of the town, where modern improvements and
new ideas have failed to dislodge it. In my youth when
the streets were lined with great overhanging trees;
paved with boards; lighted by oil lamps, or not at
all, and filled with a friendly and leisurely popula-
tion, times were different and, in some ways, more
livable.

We still have our churchyards, with the narrow way
leading from Pioneer Street to River Street, along the
Presbyterian and Episcopal churches and through
their burying grounds. Even they, however, have felt
the touch of the vandal, for years ago the heavy hand

121

122 Hesenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

of the improver was laid on Christ Churchyard when,
to the horror of many, the leaning and irregular grave
stones were set up in straight and erect lines without
reference to the location of the dead, whose virtues they
proclaim, and without distinction of sex or degree. It
is to be hoped that when the last trump sounds the
resurrected will not have to rely on their grave stones
for identification.

The people, against the background of beauty and
quiet, were the real creators of the wonderful old-time
atmosphere of the place ; they were kindly, individual,
and interesting. Down near Frog Hollow lived in a
little house two maidens of doubtful age, always known

as the "P girls." They were helped in their daily

tasks by a devoted maid, who was more like a member
of the family than a servant; they kept their pets;
canaries and white fan-tailed pigeons, and cats; but
nothing as aggressive as dogs. Deeply religious and
interested in all church work they had a lurking
love of the occult and more than half believed
in the card fortunes which they told for the youth
of the town, in darkened room and with lowered
voice. The pigeons seemed to them sacred and typi-
cal of purity. When one of the canaries escaped
they posted the following notice on the bulletin board
in the post office where lost and found articles were
recorded :

S ILost 3tttto£p!jerc 123

LOST

A yellow Canary — Flew
towards Roman Catholic
Church — Please return to
(A Great Pet) Miss H. P.

92 Pioneer St.

The event of the year for them, next to Christmas
and Easter, was a ten-day trip to visit relatives near
a large city. This was the only break in the peaceful
monotony of their lives and was the treat of well-to-do
relatives.

Their means were most limited, but they never com-
plained and always had enough to help the poor and the
less fortunate and to send some delicacy to the ill and
suffering. Life for them seemed hard and difficult, to
hold little of pleasure and much of hardship, but they
were always cheerful, hopeful, and interested.

On Main Street, at the same time, were three
cabinet makers, all old, all masters of their trade and
devoted to one another. The shop was old, as was
much of the contents. Unfinished work accumulated;
cobwebs softened every corner and angle ; shavings and
sawdust covered the floor. In all this litter of disorder,
they worked on and did the best of cabinet making.
They were of quick movement and silent tongue, but
of slow accomplishment. With years they grew to
look alike ; their backs developed the same stoop ; their

124 Hegenbg of a JBtortfjern Count?

voices the same tones and they knew one another's
thoughts without speaking. Each year the mountain
of unfinished work grew before them, but no one was
discouraged by it, except the owners. In appearance
they seemed about the age of Methuselah, with the
exception of the youngest, the son of one of them, who
was in his sixties, and who always was spoken of affec-
tionately as "The boy." One by one death claimed
them, but even he didn't hurry about his task, and when
the last went and the great pile of unfinished work was
looked over and claimants sought for it, many a long-
forgotten piece of furniture was found by its owner, and
many an owner was found to have been long in the
graveyard.

In those days the doctors and the lawyers were
marked men, and went about their tasks deliberately,
in long black coats and black silk stocks wound about
long necks, for they were all tall and thin except one
lawyer who violated custom by being very tall and very
fat. They never hurried and never forgot the dignity
of their occupation. In fact no one hurried. In the
evening when the mail arrived, every one sauntered to
the post office to await its distribution. Old and young
were there; the news was discussed and plans made for
the next day. Joy and sorrow came generally by mail.

The only event which could arouse the town was a
fire; then it went mad. The firemen fought one an-

3 ICotft &tmo$pfjere 125

other rather than the fire and the townspeople in their
misdirected zeal destroyed what the fire spared. I
have often admired the foresight of my great grand-
mother who once, when the Hall caught fire, ordered
all the doors and windows locked and bolted, told the
servants to put out the fire, while she would take care
of the fire department; this she did by pouring boiling
water on those who tried to enter the house.

When the cry of fire was heard every one dropped
his task or occupation and " hooked on" to the passing
hand-drawn, hand-pumped engines or ran regularly
with "The Phinney Hose" or "Deluge No. i" or
"Niagara No. 2." I remember one joyous occasion
when we, being young and sound of wind, ran away
with "Deluge No. i" and arrived at the fire with the
engine and no firemen. Pumping did not appeal to the
young, as running did, and was incomparably less in-
teresting than saving furniture from fire by breaking it.
When the Central Hotel burned, one night years ago,
the vantage post at the top of a ladder was seized by a
"Deluge" man, which of course, was intolerable to the
other firemen and "Niagara" and "Phinney Hose"
were turned on him until he was drowned from his
position — while the hotel burned. Next to the small
boy the pugnacious and jealous fireman was the fire's
best friend.

There were other red-letter days than those marked

126 JLtswto* of a ^tortftetn Count?

by fire; real holidays, when no one worked. Among
these was the day of the "Scottish Games." There
were three enthusiastic Scots in the village and one full
highland suit; this was worn by a very dearly beloved
doctor of distinguished Scotch descent, while the other
two wore "pants" made of Scotch plaid, and wonder-
ful to look upon. I recall another pair of holiday
"pants" made for a boy friend out of two American
flags with the Unions forming the seat. On this day
all the youth of the town were Scotch, and most of
their elders discovered a latent Caledonian strain.
Always a piper was imported and generally an athlete
or two. The taber was tossed, races run, and all kinds
of games indulged in at the fair grounds; while the piper
marched back and forth, blowing the pipes for dear
life, with that faraway look in his eye which a piper
always has, and which suggests that his "Heart is in
the Highlands" — and he looking for it.

The Sunday School picnics were great occasions too,
and there were always a few picnics at Three Mile
Point, for old and young, when the latter danced to the
music of old Joe Tom.

The elderly residents had their literary and debating
societies where papers were read and the merits of
Shakespeare and others discussed.

The town had its mysteries which lost nothing by
discussion. For one whole summer, at sunset, a cornet

a Host atmotfpfjere 127

was heard, played beautifully from the woods on the
east side of the lake. The secret of the musician's
identity was so well kept that to this day it is unknown.
All the town gathered to hear the notes, sweetened by
distance and the lake.

Years ago an English gentleman suddenly appeared
and either bought or rented Brookwood Point, fur-
nished it, and disappeared for a time to return with
a beautiful woman. He called her his wife. They
discouraged all intimacy with the townspeople and
lived much alone, until one day they were gone. The
furniture was sold at auction and from the sale came
the beautiful flat tea pot which belonged to my mother,
which is still in the family. The name the man went
by was Captain Daniels and the tea pot bears a much
worn crest. Rumor had it that he was an English army
officer who had run away with another man's wife.
Whence they came and where they went are alike
unknown.

When I was a boy, a deformed deaf mute appeared,
with a heavy chest, which he put in one of the bank
vaults, declaring it to contain gold. When the lid was
lifted, surely enough, it seemed full of gold coin. He
carried a tablet upon which all conversation was writ-
ten, and pretended to be looking for a country place.
He almost bought Brookwood Point from Elihu
Phinney, whose country home it was, for seventy-five

128 Hegenb* of a J^ortfjern Countp

thousand dollars. Then, suddenly, he vanished. He
turned out to be neither deaf nor dumb, but a fugitive
from justice, and when his chest was examined by the
authorities, a layer of gold, or imitation gold, coins was
found on the top and the bottom rilled with old iron.
We never knew what he wanted or where he went. It
was shrewdly suspected that he had planned robbing
one of the banks.

The air of the town has suffered sadly from the some-
what indiscriminate pulling down of old colonial build-
ings, and the advent of the scroll saw Victorian product.
Between the old stone bank on Main Street and the
Adam house of the Worthingtons was a row of low and
interesting dwellings, worthy of preservation; opposite
the grave of the Indian Chief on River Street was a
Colonial house, with a broad flight of steps to the front
door, surmounted by the usual portico ; on the lot near
Otsego Rock was a Gothic Cottage, which was burned.
The old Rectory, too, was an attractive white Colonial
building and along River Street were several others
now, like their inmates, gone.

The auction was a great function in those days;
there were not many of them, but when they came they
were real social events; the town went. The sales
were held on the lawns and Cooperstown society sat
about and bid languidly on the belongings of their dead
or unfortunate friends. An adjournment was had for

& Hosrt gtmospljcre 129

dinner. It was the time of bargains, and I remember a
perfect and beautiful Colonial looking-glass with a
picture across the top being knocked down for twenty-
five cents. There were heart burnings over bargains
lost but, on the whole, the auction was quite as success-
ful a social event as a party or a picnic and from the
boy's point of view more fun than either. Many a
piece of furniture now in the older houses of the village
has a record of numerous auctions, and to the old resi-
dent its history would be well known, and perhaps its
appearance at another auction eagerly awaited.

Sunday was strictly observed; no one sailed or rowed
on the lake, and all games were forbidden; it was a
sacred but terrible day, as long as all the rest of the
week, and to make it worse a cold lunch took the place of
dinner. Church and Sunday School over, and a cold
and inadequate lunch eaten at one o'clock, the entire
town spent a cheerful afternoon walking to the ceme-
tery and back. A hurried and cold supper followed
and then evening service. I remember how heartily I
sympathized with the little boy who burst into tears
when told that if he was very good, when he died he
would go to heaven, where it always was Sunday.

The very hotels were different: where the Fenimore
is now was the St. James, a dignified white frame build-
ing with a classical portico and high steps leading to it.
Nearly opposite was the Central Hotel, also with a

130 Hegenb* of a Jfrortfjent Count?

classical portico covering the entire front and reaching
from the ground to the roof. When I was a boy of less
than seven I always got up in the morning by the gong
of a hotel which stood where the library does now and
which was called, I think, the Red Lion. It burned
down and was succeeded by an immense brick hotel
which never was finished, and which for years was
called the Skeleton Hotel. Finally it was pulled down
as unsafe. It was a terrible place to pass after dark —
as it was full of ghosts.

There were no steamboats on the lake, only sail
boats, row boats, and large scows. The chug-chug of
the restless motor boat was of course undreamed of;
all was serenity and beauty. The lake front was not
disfigured by the present row of boat houses and work
shops. Great rafts of pine logs were floated down the
lake and river to the dam where they supplied the saw-
mill. The gristmill stood about where the water-
works building is now; the sawmill just west of the
east bridge, and between them the cider mill and a
small one for planing. This was the manufacturing
suburb of the town and a great playground. The mills
were full of interest; but the greatest pleasure was run-
ning on the logs which filled the mill pond from bank
to bank and ran far up the river. It had just that spice
of danger which appeals to boys; one had to keep mov-
ing or the logs rolled over and a ducking followed ; many

Si Host gltmotfpfjere 131

is the time I have slipped through into the river and
dried out in the sun.

Perhaps the "Cooper girls" for years contributed
as much to the atmosphere of the place as any single
household; they were the "Cooper girls" in the early
part of the nineteenth century, and the "Cooper girls"
they were affectionately called until the end, which
came for them well on toward the latter part of that
century. As children some of them left here about
1817; as young women they returned about 1833,
to fill out their allotted years. They were my four
aunts; two of them married and one lived for a time in
another village but returned here as a widow to join
her two maiden sisters and her third, already a widow.
During the most formative period of their lives they
lived in New York and Europe; they saw the most dis-
tinguished social life of many of the great European
cities and were educated there with all the care and
thoroughness of that day, and in all its small accom-
plishments; and then returned to the somewhat pro-
vincial life of this little village in central New York.
The contrast, great now, was greater then, but they
found no fault with their lot, and if they had longings
for greater things and heart burnings for the glories
which they had known, they never spoke of them. One
of them, Susan, wrote a number of books; another,
Charlotte, consoled herself with her music and her

132 Hegenb* of a J^ortljent Count?

garden, and the other two had their children to educate
and care for. They were far from rich, hardly well-to-
do, and after the Hall was sold, they lived in a little
Gothic cottage, built for them on the banks of the Sus-
quehanna out of brick from their old home which had
burned. Good works took much of their time and the
eldest, Susan, who founded the hospital and named it
"Thanksgiving," in gratitude for the end of the Civil
War, was looked upon almost as a saint ; she started the
Orphanage and numerous other charitable institutions.

They never gossiped, they never spoke unkindly of,
or crossly to, anyone; they looked for and found the
humorous and beautiful in life, 'and in their surround-
ings; no doubt they lived much in the memory of the
past and in the interests acquired by travel in those
early years. Aunt Charlotte loved flowers and had a
garden which she tended with devoted care; as she grew
older and feebler the garden shrank until when the end
came there were but two sparsely covered beds close
to the house. Her death was tragic; when her beloved
sister, Susan, had a stroke of paralysis and was lying
unconscious, the shock to her was terrible, and she
crept quietly off to her room, lay down on her bed, and
died unattended.

They entertained in a small but most delightful way,
always having the best of food. I spent many summers
under their roof, and must have been a trying guest — a

3 ICotft &tmo*pfjere 133

small boy in such a household ; but I never was spoken
to unkindly, although I remember deserving it many
a time. Meals were served with great formality and
always began with ''Grace "and ended with "Thanks
returned . ' ' This seemed superfluous to my young eager-
ness to be off and at play; as did the formal sitting
about the table for some time after dessert had been
eaten. This monotony often was relieved, however, by
an amusing incident; they were all deaf, some of them
very much so, and it occasionally happened that one
would return thanks, not to be heard by the others,
and after a little another would perform the same cere-
mony, much to my irreverent joy. Theirs was not the
only household of its kind in the village in those days;
it was typical merely and perhaps the most pronounced
in its peculiarities, its history, and its habits.

There was another delightful household of which a
one-time village wit said, not unkindly, that they had
"mice blood" in them; they were afraid of cats and
loved to sit close up in corners.

The world is small and strange things happen. My
first lawsuit, just before I was admitted to the Bar, was
over some bank books which had been stolen from one
of two very old women, living down town in Albany.
I won the case and one of my old clients told me that
when she was a little girl she lived in Coopers town,
where one day in playing she fell into the mill

i34 Hejjenb* of a Jfrortfjern County

pond; she was alone and would have been drowned if
it had not been for a man passing on horseback who
dismounted and rescued her; that man, she said, was
Judge Cooper. It all must have happened before 1809,
the year Judge Cooper died. The reward for his act
was long deferred as I, his great-grandson, got eighty
dollars for trying the case in the year 1880. It always
suggested to my mind casting one's bread upon the
waters and having it return after many days. Four
generations is some time to wait for the return.

But to go back to the people ; there was one little old
lady who deserved a Thackeray to immortalize her.
In her youth she had been a great beauty, and in fact
never lost her looks. She lived near Cooperstown
when first married, and although for years a wanderer
over the earth, she finally returned each summer to her
old home. She had all the charm of the woman of the
world that she was; a charm which never grew old; a
manner which always was gracious ; a wit and conversa-
tional ability which were vouchsafed to few favored
mortals. She never lost her interest in life and people,
or her love of gay clothes and bright colors ; in appear-
ance she was a typical fairy godmother of the early
Victorian age; she was always a welcome guest, and
was as much sought by the young as by the middle
aged and by her few contemporaries.

When she came to town, attired in the style and

a lost Stmotfpfjcre 135

colors which prevailed in her early twenties, it was in a
Victoria, of about her own age, drawn by horses which
must have been colts when she was young, and driven
by a coachman who personified all that was fat, red-
faced, and dignified of his occupation ; his livery was of
the kind which "fitted too soon" and was drawn in
deep creases about him. He never failed to properly
celebrate a visit to the village; so when the home
journey began, he drove his mistress into the shadows
of the lake road with an unsteady hand and a most
beatific smile.

SOME OLD LETTERS

I HAVE selected from a great mass of letters the fol-
lowing, as throwing some light on life at Cooperstown
in the early days of the settlement; there was a con-
stantly changing and most interesting social life, quite
remarkable when we remember the remoteness of the
village and its inaccessibility. The family life at
Judge Cooper's home seems to have been most de-
lightful, and the strangers within the village gates
evidently grew to love the place and the people residing
there.

William Cooper to Stephen Van Rensselaer:

Cooperstown May the 2, 1792.
MY MUCH ESTMD AND

HIGHLY PRISD FRIEND

After giving detailed reports of an election this letter
goes on.

I am preparing to Illuminate as well the town as the lake
on which we shall raise Bonfires on Platforms, cannonading,
musick, Horns & Conche Shells; turn out all the wine in my
cellar &c. on Jays Election. Huza for our side at last — but
if Clinton succeeds, I must hang up my fiddle. You alarm
me about McComb, Morris & Bingham. I hope Constable

136

feome ©to Eettera 137

is not in the scrape, nor Carlisle Pollock. I, like the rest of
the Human Race, hope that they will hold out until I shall
not be so deeply interested for their welfare. Adieu, my
dear friend, Adieu, with all Possible Cordiality and Friend-
ship, once more Adieu.

WILLIAM COOPER.
Honorable S. V. Rensselaer, Esq.,
Albany.

Judge Cooper seems to have been very fond of S. V.
Rensselaer; in closing a letter dated October 7, 1792,
he says,

Remember that I profess to be a man of business and
expect to have my letters answered. I know that you are
taking up with objects more interesting than that of writing
to me, but my good Friend, there is nothing that makes one
man feel so bold in calling the attention of another as that
of knowing that he has an honest and sincere friendship for
him, in which business you will do me the justice to believe
that there is none that holds your welfare in higher estima-
tion than myself, this is the first declaration that I have
made on that subject, and shall in future desist from Pro-
testations, supposing you always take it for granted —
friendship being a chain that never wants rubing in direct
terms to keep it bright.

Adieu,

WILLIAM COOPER.

Jacob Le Ray

New York, Dec. 7, 1793.
MY DEAR SIR :

You will find enclosed two Bank notes of ten Dollars
each, which you will be good enough to keep until called for

138 3Legente of a ^tottfjent Count?

by a stranger. They are not a gift of my own, but were
handed me for this purpose, and intended to relieve the
wants of an elderly French Gentleman of consequence, whose
name I dare not reveal at present and who perhaps will call
on you to receive them in which case you will shew him
every civility in your power.

Sincerely yours

JACOB LE RAY.
Endorsed

1 3th Dec. delivered to Mr. P. the 20 dollars on his
producing a letter from the Gentleman who sent them.
Mr. P. promised to forward them to the unknown person
intended.

I have no idea who the mysterious Frenchman could
have been; undoubtedly a refugee and one in very
straightened circumstances if twenty dollars could be
of such importance. The country was full of exiled
Frenchmen at the time, among them Talleyrand who
visited Judge Cooper and wrote his daughter Hannah
the following acrostic :

Aimable philosophe an printemps de son age,
Ni les temps, ni les lieus n'alterent son esprit ;

Ne cedent qu' a ses gouts simples et same 6talage,
Au milieu des deserts, elle lit, pense, e*crit.

Cultivez, bella Anna, votre gout pour l'e*tude;

On ne saurait ici mieux employer son temps;
Otsego n'est pas gai-mais, tout est habitude;

Paris vous de*plairait fort au premier moment;
Et qui jouit de soi dans une solitude,

Rentrant au monde, est sur d'en faire 1'ornement.

g>ome ©Ib Hettertf 139

Arthur Noble, who wrote the next letter, was an
English gentleman and was largely interested in frontier
lands. He owned two patents north of us, known as
Arthurboro and Nobleboro, each of thirty thousand
acres. Fort Noble was his town. It never prospered
and its site now is marked only by a building or two.

Great expectations were built on "sugar and rum
from the maple tree" in those days. They too, were
unfulfilled, but every effort was made to develop this
business. Among the old papers of Judge Cooper's is
an agreement signed by a long list of public-spirited
citizens by which each agrees to purchase and consume a
stated amount of maple sugar annually for a term of
years; nothing is said of the "rum." Perhaps an
agreement was not necessary as to this.

Conajohary, May 7th, 1791.

DEAR COOPER,

I left the sugar and Spirits in Charge with our Friend Dr
Rush to be delivered to the President on his return from
the Southward, which they expect will be in the Middle of
June. Dr Rush thinks the properest way to address him
will be thus — Mr Cooper and Mr Noble present their re-
spects to the President of the United States, and request
his Acceptance of Samples of Sugar and Spirits produced
from the Maple tree with their Observation etc. — I am
sure he will word it so as to give you Satisfaction, I am on
my road to Fort Noble, where I shall expect to see your
Honor about the 2oth. Inst. — , and request you will bring
Hargrove with you. I spent two days very agreably in

140 ICegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

Albany, one with the Patroon the other with Gansy we did
not forget you. Danby swears like a trooper if you forget
to send her the Maple Sugar she will torment you all the
days of your life Dr Rush sent his Son to Penningtons for
the four Loaves of White Maple Sugar, but he had Dis-
posed of every Ounce of it. I have been bragging what a
Quantity you would bring to Market this year. I hope
you will not be disappointed by your Yankees, the Chan-
cellor has quite failed in his Experiments he says he will
lose 100 Pounds by it, his People told him it was a very
bad year and the trees would not run. Rush brought me to
Mr Jefferson the Secretary of State, he is as Sanguine as
you or I about the Maple Sugar, he thinks in a few years
we shall be able to Supply half the World, he read me a
Paragraph out of a letter from France, to tell him there is a
house in Amsterdam going to Send to this Country to set
up works for the Manufacturing of Maple Sugar.

With best wishes for your Family and Mr Smith Believe
Me Dear Cooper

Your truly Sincere Friend

ARTHUR NOBLE.

The following letter is interesting as showing the
method of sale and settlement of land adopted by
Judge Cooper. He followed it consistently and it may
have been the reason of his success as a maker of
settlements, in part at least.

The other method, adopted by many land owners at
the time, was to lease the land in fee, requiring the
tenant to pay perpetually an annual rental. It was

feome ©ft better* 141

this latter form of conveyance which led to the anti-
rent agitation and the so-called war.

Cooperstown, 7 Mo 3rd 1790.
Esteemed Friend
Charles J. Evans.

Thy letter of the I3th of April (informing of one wrote
some months ago and forwarded to my House in Jersey)
came to hand this day ; it had reached my House some time
ago but my being from home caused it to be sent with others
after me, and missing me has only just come to hand now.
My Mode of selling Lands both those that belong to myself
and those that belong to my Friends, is to allow the Pur-
chaser a credit of Ten Years for the Purchase Money giving
him a Warrantee Deed and taking a Mortgage with Bond
and Warrant carrying legal Interest. This I have found by
experience to be the only way to raise our back Lands from
a nominal to a lively Estate — as the Purchaser when he
holds the Soil in fee sees a probability of making it his own,
he therefore builds better Houses Barns and other Buildings
clears his Lands in a better and more effectual manner at-
tends to planting Orchards, and in fact looks up as a Man
on record with more ambition than he that is settled on any
other plan ever yet practised.

I did not think of taking any more under my care yet
awhile having just got through with three hundred thou-
sand Acres, but if those Lands are good I will strive to sell
them for thee for the following Comission. For all the
Bonds and Mortgages I hand thee regularly acknowledged
and recorded I must be allowed Five per Cent on the Sum
so delivered one fourth in advance one Fourth when the
Business is compleated or such part of it as I from time to
time may get through with, the remainder I will collect

142 Hegente of a JBtortfjern Count?

from the Tenants or Purchasers whom I sell to — if those
Terms should meet thy approbation inform me by a Line
directed to the care of Glen & Bleecker's Merchants Albany.
There must be also a power of Attorney proved before one
of the Judges of the Supreme Court or one of the Masters
in Chancery in order that it may be recorded in the County
where the Lands lie, an exact survey of the Lands must
likewise be sent. Thee must also prepare Blank Deeds
Bonds and Martgages for my purposes which is all the
expence thee will be at in this business save that of the
commission aforementioned.

With due Respect I am
thy real Friend

WILLIAM COOPER.
(Endorsed:)

Charles J. Evans,

To the care of New York.

Ludlow & Goold,

Wall Street,

for the Post.

Ph. Schuyler to Wm. Cooper

Albany May 7th 1792
DEAR SIR: —

Your favor of the 24th ult. I had the pleasure to receive
last evening. Its communications are infinitely agreeable
and the result of the poles as you state, such as will give us
the victory, unless our friends in other quarters err egre-
giously in their calculations, —

Whether we succeed or not, we shall be much indebted to
your exertions. Stephen too has done his best, and I have
not been Idle and we are advised that Mr. Jacob Morris
has evinced himself a true friend to the good cause — The

feome ©to Uetter* 143

patroon has been rebuked for not writing you but he pleads
not guilty, — and puts himself on his tryal, —

I was in hopes to have had the pleasure of visiting you,
but Mrs Rensselaer's indisposition obliges me to attend her
to New York. If I am home when the canvassing closes,
and If It turns out as we wish I will express a messenger
express to you, — If otherwise bad news flies fast enough —

I believe fasting and prayer to be good but If you had only
fasted and prayed I am certain we should not have had
seven hundred votes from your country — reports say,
that you was civil to the young and handsome of the sex, that
you flattered the old & ugly. — and even embraced the tooth-
less and decrepit, in order to obtain votes — when will you
write a treatise on Electioneering? whenever you do afford
only a few copies to your friends —

Adieu, I am very sincerely
Dear Saint William,
Yours &c

PH. SCHUYLER.

Mr. Judge Cooper

(Addressed)

To — William Cooper Esq.,

First Judge of the Court of Commonplease
in the County of Otsego
at Cooper st own.

W. Cooper to B. Gilbert

Cooperstown, 8 of March 1794.

Hudson hath returned from Albany — reports that no
alteration in the officers of the Pleas or Peace will take
place — that he hath assurances that no agreement was made

144 Hegenbtf of a Jlortfjern County

in the council to adopt our List. General Schuyler and
0 Hoffman, both informed me that they had agreed and
that it was a settled thing and as from them I reported it
here, if it is not the case I am in a very awkward situation,
however to put myself out of the way of mortification — I
have come to the determination — never to sit with Hudson,
Harper, Culley or Cannon again — for to be obliged to sign
bills of Exception at every Court on account of their igno-
rance or wickedness I will not — not to mention their total
want of respectability — besides I treat no man that I pro-
fess friendship for with indiference — nor can I bear the
neglect of an alteration so loudly called for from a people
who have a right to demand it — therefore if you find the
appointments not like to take place, hand in the inclosed
to the Council of Appointment, if you find that they cer-
tainly will, then keep it and hand it me again — but if other-
wise do not neglect it. As to the lock if there is any oppo-
sition let it be, for I am confident the public must and will
do it — shortly — however — make a motion for £50 to build
a bridge across the Susquehannah at the end of the State

road.

Yours sincerely

WILLIAM COOPER.
Benjamin Gilbert.

(Enclosure.)
GENTLEMEN

The Almost constant intoxication, extreme ignorance
and total want of respectability of a Majority of the Judges
and Assistant Justices with whom I have to associate in the
Courts of Justice for the County of Otsego renders it abso-
lutely necessary that I should resign the office of first
Judge of the County aforesaid, as well to bare a Testimony
against such undignified carrectors as also to avoid the

©Ib netted 145

mortification of being obliged to sign bills of exception with
them at every Court. I cannot readily think of any Person
fit for the office that I can recommend to so painful a sittua-
tion, therefore not doubting but your honorable Board will
make the best provision for the respectability of the county
in your Power, I do hereby resign and deliver up to you the
honor and trust reposed in me by Virtue of a commission
under the Great Seal of the State bearing date iyth of
February, 1791 nominating and commissioning me to act
as first Judge of the County afforesaid.

With due respect I remain

WILLIAM COOPER

The Honorable Council of Appointment
of the State of New York

As two copies of the resignation are with the letter,
the new appointments must have been made. The
picture of frontier justice is not a pleasant one.

It is evident from the following letter that in "Hud-
son" Judge Cooper found a foeman worthy of his steel.

New York 21 Jany. 1793.

Two petitions signed by Ephraim Hudson and about 70
other persons seting forth that you as first Judge of Otsego
had been guilty of mal & corrupt conduct and sundry mis-
demeaners in the execution of your office, was this day read
in the house, after which I immediately rose and declared
that I viewed it as a false scandalous & malicious libel and
moved that they might be ordered to lay on the table, how-
ever numbers prevailed and they were committed to a com-
mittee of the whole to be taken up next Wednesday with a
Resolution moved also to day by a Mr. Curtis to an enquiry
into your conduct.

146 Hegenbtf of a Jlortfjern Count?

It being the latter end of the sessions I think there is little
danger that the business will be fully gone into at the present
however, if it remains over its an unpleasant thing — some
of those fellows would go to the devil to ruin you, however
walk straight and be firm and you have nothing to fear

I expect you & Talbot will have a pretty tight race for
Congress

As the Post does not go 'till Thursday morning shall not close
this unless a direct private conveyance offers 'till Wednesday
evening & will inform you what the house may do that day

Wednesday 2$d January 1793

Question was this day taken upon a postponment of Mr.
Curtiss resolution 'till the next session and lost, then the
house agreed to the resolution, and the sergeant at Arms is
to be sent to Otsego for witnesses by whom I shall send you
a copy of the petition, the signers names &c and copy of the
resolution agreed to

Yours truly &c

JACOB MORRIS.
P.S.

My business will absolutely require me to be home before
this business comes on.
Judge Cooper.

(Addressed)

Honorable William Cooper Esquire
Cooperstown

Rufus King to Judge Cooper

Philadelphia 10 March 1794

DEAR SIR,

I ought sooner to have replied to your Letters respecting
the land sold to you when you was last in New York — I
view the subject in the same light that you do, and consider

g>ome ©Ib Hetter* 147

the Bargain to have been then concluded — Mr. Kent has
drawn the Deeds &c. which are ready for execution — Had
I seen Mr. Smith I should have proposed to him to have
taken the mortgage in order to have had it executed,
recorded and returned —

I was very much gratified with the proceedings of the
Assembly on your subject; justice has been rendered to you,
and mortification inflicted upon your adversaries. — We have
before us again the subject of post Roads, and have inserted
in the Bill a road to Cooperstown in Otsego, branching from
the Mohawk, and passing through Cherry Valley —

As post roads are bestowed very freely at the request of
our southern friends; if you have in view any extension of
the Post, in your Quarter, which by facilitating the com-
munication of information, would accommodate any con-
siderable number of People, I desire you to give me early,
and particular, information, that I may be able to propose
the addition when the Bill shall come before the Senate —
We have nothing of a public nature, which the News Papers
do not communicate — one great effort is to preserve the peace
of the Country, tho some late proceedings of the British in
the West Indies, if they shall be authorized, will prove
extremely embarassing —

Our last accounts assure us that the Indians are desirous of
Peace, and there is some hope that this event will take place.

Yours very truly,

RUFUS KING.
Judge Cooper

J. Morris to Judge Cooper
DEAR JUDGE

The town of Unadilla still retains its federal name in
spite of the most violent efforts of the antis

After our political opponents had held several meetings

148 Hegettte of a J^torttjern Count?

had written enumerable circular letters, had dispatched
many expresses, and had rode day and night to the no small
inquiry of the nighing quadrupeds, we yesterday came to
the pole for supervisor of this town when the number stood
for Butler Gilbert Esq. 73

and for David Bates Esquire 68

Majority in favor of the federalists- 5

Never was there a greater discomfiture of the clintonian
force in this town, such was their sanguine hopes and pros-
pects of success that bets were freely offered of large odds
before the election in favor of Bates, every man in the town
on that side who was able to travel was brought up both
white and black — they had indeed laid their plan so well as
to keep at home many of our friends on the Otego Patent
and to draw over to their interest many wavering persons
and our success is wholly ascribable to the federal spirit of
the butternuts; the hardy sons of this new settlement
rushed over the Otego hills an irresistible phalanx and bore
down all opposition; none were hostile to us but two per-
sons we most heartily dispise to wit Capt. Craw and the
would be Esquire, the former a doubleface villain and the
latter a notorious rogue — All the other town officers are

decidedly and unequivocally federal and anti C n and

were carried in by a very large majority and I think the
opposition have given us their last dying speech therefore
let us join chorus with Eli

That since in Political dust they are laid

Their all dead and d d, & no more can be said.

I proposed to the meeting to enter into a resolution to
raise a sum at a future day for the purpose building with
other towns a House at Cooperstown for the accommodation
of the poor which was agreed to by a respectable majority

g>ome ©to Hetter* 149

on taking the question, but when we came to fix the sum

the Cullys & other C n devils raised such a cabal and

clamour that the whole business was knocked in the head
notwithstanding I urged so strongly the policy interest and
economy of the measure

It will be most convenient to me to attend to the running
the line we agreed to chain about the middle of this month,
I hope therefore it may be convenient and agreeable to you
to meet me at Esquire deVillers on the evening of tuesday
the 15 instant & we will start from the corner the next morning
& dine at my house

Yours &c

J. MORRIS
Judge Cooper 2 April 1794.

P. S.

Our town looks to the Cooperstown manufactary
for a supply of ballots for the ensuing election you will
please to have 300 prepared for us & forwarded in good
season — from an over officiousness in driving the quill here-
tofore in this part of the world too much dependence is
generally put on me for the performance of that duty but
I feel all the conscientious scruples with regard to signing
or writing my name on a certain occasion that some men
do when about to commit a forgery —

Had I known that a militia Capts. commiss'n. carried
with it such authority among the New England settlers I
would between you & I and the post have made a dead set
at the Commiss'n, of that great personage mentioned on
the other leaf last winter.

(Addressed)
Honorable
Judge Cooper
Cooperstown

150 ICegenbg of a Jlorrtjern County

F. Z. Lequoy to W. Cooper

Charleston, (SC) The 23 March 1795

DEAR SIR

Your letter of the I2th of February has only been received
but few days ago, it is not a little satisfaction to me to hear
of your family. Whom I am so mutch indented for all
kinds of favors and polite attentions.

I hope soon to return to my humble and philosophical
retreat whilst you will shine on the flour amongst the dele-
gates of the Union, if I am well informed.

My buzinenes here are prety near at an end, and I shall
soon see you in Philadelphia.

The Older I grow, My Dr Sir, the less I am determined
for matrimony. What you are please to say on that subject
is of the most flatering prospect; but, I begin to reflect that
to make ones Wiffe happy it is not sufficient to Wisch it
warmly.

My best respects to all your family but more particularly
to your Bellowed and charming Ms Anna, I am very
Sincerely

F. Z. LEQUOY.

William Cooper Esqre

Member of the House of Representatives,
in Philadelphia.

Le Quoy was a refugee who kept a small shop at
Cooperstown for some time. He turned out to be a
French nobleman who at one time had been Port
Captain of St. Pierre, Martinique.

DEAR SIR : —

g>ome ©to Uetter* 151

Jacob Morris to W. Cooper

Albany 2 January 1796

The brilliancy exhibited at Cooperstown last Tuesday —
the Masonic Festival, was the admiration and astonishment
of all beholders — Upwards of 80 People set down to one
Table — some very excellent toasts were drank and the great-
est decency and decorum was observed as well there (in
the Academy) as in the procession from Huntington's
Hotel.

In the evening we had a splendid ball 60 couple, 30 in a
set, both sets on the floor at the same time, pleasant
manners and good dancing. . . .

With compl't's to Miss Cooper and also R. R. Smith
notwithstanding he has so totally forgotten his Butternut
friends I conclude Dr Sir

Your ob ser't

JACOB MORRIS
Judge Cooper

DEAR SIR—

Moss Kent to W. Cooper

Cooperstown, April 7, 1796

Your children here are well and Mrs. Cooper is gradually
gaining strength. She has rode out in the carriage for
several mornings past and means to continue riding when

the weather will permit. Mrs. C has enjoined it upon

me to inform you that she lives very unhappy and is very
impatient for your return and wishes you to bring Isaac &
Nancy with you. She is also desirous that you should
engage a House at Burlington before you return as it is her

152 Hegenb* of a J^ottftetn Count?

determination never to spend another winter in this coun-
try. I would have wished that Richard had wrote you on
this business but Mrs. Cooper enjoined it on me, and my
duty and politeness to her induced me to be obedient to her

request.

I am yours respectfully

Moss KENT
Wm. Cooper Esq
Member of Congress,
Philadelphia

Evidently there were homesick hours for Mrs.
Cooper. Judge Cooper rented his house for the winter
of 1798, we know from an existing lease, but he seems
to have kept it open in 1797 — although Mrs. Cooper
may have spent that winter at Burlington.

W. COOPER to
Hon. Stephen Van Rensselaer

Albany

On the evening of the third day of June I shall send my
wagon and one or two spare horses to the Mohawk to accom-
modate yourself and Robert — on the fourth I shall have the
constables with their staves at the County line to escort
the Judge and Retinue. Attend to this and give warning

to Fairly. . . .

Yours

W. COOPER.

Stephen Van Rensselaer was a Senator and Judge of
the Court of Errors. The "Constables with staves'1
would have resembled Falstaffs Army.

£>ome ©Ib Iletter* 153

S. V. R. to W. Cooper

Watervliet Nov. 10 1797

DEAR JUDGE

I send by your son Richd a few poplars and gooseberries
to ornament your garden. I am apprehensive the season is
not favorable and lest they should not succeed I shall order
some to be forwarded in the Spring — Your letter I handed
to the Governor — I suppose that was the intention. The
day we left your hospitable Mansion I was much diverted.
Tomy (Rev'd Thomas Ellison) insisted that he knew the
road from Herricks and led me to Youngs Lake Richfield
& the devil knows not where at length I inquired — my
conjectures were true he had never traveled the road. We
returned both in a pet — we arrived at one Castles in the
town of Warren a miserable house — our horses fatigued it
became necessary to have refreshment. I inquired for
oats — Oats in plenty, Torn7 for a pipe. A pipe was
brought and good tobacco, pray landlord says Ellison
have you anything to eat. Why because we live in the
woods do you think we do not eat — says the Esq. — to judge
from your looks says Tommy one would not think you did
much at it. A laugh all round. The old woman was
called ; she said we might have fresh pike and beef steaks —
fresh pike says Tommy — dancing & laughing — forgot our
circuitous rout — and with difficulty could I prevail on him
to start after dinner — he advised the Esqr to send you some
pike and brandy — being scarce articles in Coopers Town —
as you must be tired by this time of reading when we meet
I will detail the rest, I expect you to live at my house this
winter.

Yours

S VR
(Stephen Van Rensselaer)

154 ILegento of a Jlortfjern Count?

The following letter was written by Judge Cooper to
Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg with the hope of per-
suading him to build the Lutheran Seminary, provided
for by the Will of John Christopher Hartwick, at
Cooperstown, instead of on the Hartwick Patent, where
it now stands, about three miles south of the village.
The arguments seem convincing, but were of no avail;
the Hartwick Seminary is still running and prosper
ous, while the academy at Cooperstown long since
disappeared.

W. Cooper to Muhlenberg

Cooperstown November 19, 1797
DEAR SIR

We have been visited by the Reverend John Frederick
Ernst — as the Teacher and Pastor agreed on by you and
others to take upon him the charge of those offices consist-
ant with the will of the late John Christopher Hartwick —
Altho you have allowed him only the starving sum of 250
dollars Per annum, yet if you join that to our Institution
you will render the Man — the Very People you mean to
serve and the Community at large a real service for we have
a noble Edifice Erected at the Expense of £1500 chartered
and a Library granted by the Regents and now in action —
but kept open for a superintendant until we know your
determinations — which from your ideas, when I had last
the pleasure of talking with you, and your waiting on the
trustees, and from your statements I expected a proposition
on your part — which is still uncertain, and our Seminary of
Learning kept back. My dear Sir, it would be as improper

£>ome ©Ib Hettertf 155

for you to spend the stock of that estate in Erecting Proper
buildings in the woods for the Promotion of the object
before you, when there is already a chartered institution
which will conform to your mode of Directing the business —
and that within one mile of the Patent in a fine village where
board and all kinds of mechanics are at hand for the con-
venience of the students — where there is a decent market
and upward of 400 souls in a compact settlement — as im-
proper, I say, as it would be to dig a canal from Philadel-
phia to Germantown for ships to unload their — when there
are already good warfs in Philadelphia for that use — The
People in this town like the man and will erect a house for
him, and subscribe more than you have allowed him be-
sides giving him the advantage of the tuition money — but
he must reside here and take the charge of our Academy —
from uniting the two interests great Public good will result,
from setting up two institutions within four miles of each
other, little can be expected from one or the other — in short
the object of the Dominie's will can be converted into the
highest Public Utility by appropriating not more than half
the revenues to our school. We have one room in it that
will hold 1000 People — The People on the Pattent will
attend Divine Service here, for the most part, that would
there — Such as wish to be taught the Languages can
come better for their children can have bord cheaper
and the farmer Pay in Produce. But we must know as
soon as you can conveniently arrange the business —
should you decline joining us we could then make our own
arrangements.

Yours with Great Regard

WILLIAM COOPER

Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Esq.

156 Eegettb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

Lequoy to W. Cooper

Hague 1 4th May 1799

DEAR SIR

Your Embassador Mr. Murray does obligingly afford me
a sure opportunity to write to my friends in America, as
long as I Leave I will reckon you amongest them. Otsego
never will stranger to my heart nor all his good inhabitants.
I am now in a diplomatic line and entrusted with soame
important interest of my Country here.

May you, Sir, and your family, be as happy in every re-
spect as I wish, may you long enjoye of the respect and
Gratitude from all your tenants and the filial affection of
your children. To whom as well as Mrs. Cooper I beg to
be remembered is and will be my warmest vow
I remain, Dear Sir,

Your humble Servant

F. Z. LEQUOY
To William Cooper Esqre
at Cooperstown,
Otsego County,
New York

J. Fenimore Cooper to W. Cooper

Coopers Town March 3d 1800

DEAR PAPA

I take this opportunity to write to you as Isaac is a going
directly to Philadelphia, we have got 6 lambs one has died
and another is most dead. Mr Macdonald is a going to
leave us for Albany. Mama will not let Samuel go with
Isaac though he wished to very much. I go to school to
Mr. Cory where I write and cypher. Mr. Macdonald has
had a new student from New York who encamped in Mr.
Kents barn and laid 3 days there without being found out

g>ome <©lb Eettera 157

and had his feet frozen. We are all well. I hope I shall
have the pleasure of receiving a letter from you soon as this
letter reaches you —

Your

Affectionate son

JAMES K. COOPER

1 8 Century, 1800

This is said to be the first letter written by James
Fenimore Cooper; probably it is only the earliest which
has survived. The "K" is for "Kent," after Moss
Kent, for whom James Cooper had a great admiration.

The following are extracts from letters written to
Judge Cooper by Richard R. Smith, of Philadelphia,
between the years 1794 and 1802:

New York, 6th Nov. 1794.
DEAR JUDGE,

I wish you would endeavor to sell it for me, and also to
get Walbridge to pay me some for I declare I am ashamed
that my Friends in Philada should know that I lived Five
Years in Otsego and told them I was making money, and
then let them find out that I was forced to borrow money to
get away — Please to give my compliments to Peter, telling
him that not knowing what better to do, I left his in Mrs.
Hoffman's hands till he should receive his orders — I have
called to see Nancy several times, she has grown to be a
charming Girl though she was always that, I mean that she
has improved — Miss Bingham and Miss Nesbitt are
well — Isaac is well and sends his love, we embark tomorrow
morning by daylight for Burlington. Compliments to Mrs.
Cooper and believe me ever yours,

RICHD. R. SMITH.

158 Hegentr* of a Jfrort&em Count?

Philada. 25th Novr. 1794

DEAR JUDGE

Isaac is well and seems contented, tho' he says Burlington
is not equal to Cooperstown, and there he is certainly right ,
as it has always been on Sunday when I have been at Bur-
lington, I have not had any opportunity of examining the
school in person, but everybody says it is a good one for
that kind of learning which you wish Isaac to have. Re-
member me affectionately to Mrs. Cooper and the chil-
dren— I Most heartily salute our agreeable little Circle
and indeed all Cooperstown — and with every good wish for
your prosperity, I remain,

Affectionately

RICHD. R. SMITH.

I believe I shall make more money by the exchange of
place, but hang me if I expect more happiness — You
mention that Miss Cooper is in Albany yet — when you see
her please to present my most sincere respects, and wishes
for her happiness — I am not without hopes of seeing her
accompany you to this City, when you come down to the
grand Council — I hope you have beaten them, tho' I hear
nothing of it yet — The Fonda system is not necessary —
the markets being very fine, tho they are excessively dear —
Mrs. Cooper's kind attention to my mare demands and
receives my warmest thanks — I often think of Mrs.
C's kindness to me with gratitude and pleasure, I hope
she enjoys health, and I am sure I wish her happiness, kiss
the dear little children for me, tell them I certainly shall
remember to send them something whenever I have an
opportunity — It grieves me that I cant stop and help you
eat a Turkey or so of a Sunday — Remember me most
affectionately to the Lads, tell them I often think of them,
and wish I could take a Rubber or two. I believe I have

g>ome ©Ib Hetter* 159

said everything I ought to say — if there is anything more
let it be good Wishes for Mrs. Cooper and the Family —
and most sincere good wishes for everybody and everything
in Coopers-Town. Anti-federalism is much below Par
here. God bless you and believe me

ever most sincerely

yours

10 O clock at night RICHD. R. SMITH.

so says the Watchman — adieu —

Philada. Jany. 1st, 1795

DEAR JUDGE

I think one of your late letters to me mentioned that you
were without an assistant — but perhaps I misunderstood
you — my reason for introducing it now is that my Brother
is not in any considerable business and I believe would like
to live in Cooperstown — I flattered myself that I suited
you, and I dare engage that he will give at least equal satis-
faction— should you have an Idea of this kind you will
oblige me by touching upon it in some future communica-
tion— Business engrosses the chief of my attention but I
often withdraw my mind from it to indulge myself with a
retrospective view of the many pleasing Hours which I have
spent in our sweet little City, and particularly those which
were more immediately confined to domestic enjoyment in
your agreeable Family — I fancy Miss Cooper is still in
Albany — I hear nothing of her arrival in New York yet
I regret the want of an opportunity to send her some new
Books with which I know she would be pleased — but some-
one will doubtless present itself before her return to
Coopers Town, previous to which she would scarcely have
leisure to read them — in the mean time I may add to the
collection — The paper of this Evening gives an Account
of General Knox's resignation of His office — you have no

160 Hegenb* of a J^ortfjern Count?

doubt heard that Col. Hamilton has acted a similar part —
it is a circumstance sincerely to be lamented that such men
should be driven to the necessity of discontinuing their
public labours to avoid the slanderous abuse of the greatest
Rascals in Society — Remember me most respectfully to
Mrs. Cooper and your Family — I hope " de frolic season "
has been properly kept — I often longed to spend it with
you — I cannot particularise, but I wish to be remembered
most affectionately to all my Friends, if I had only the sole
of an old Shoe that had belonged to any of them I should
reverence it — I know you will do the best you can for my
Interest — If Robert Stephens would bring my mare down
I would satisfy him well for the expence and trouble. I
want her much — You will think I have written enough
when I tell you that it is Ten o'clock, and that I slept none
last night, I sat up with a Gentleman of my acquaintance
who nearly lost his life by an accident — Adieu & think
me ever most sincerely

Yours

RICHD. R. SMITH.

I hope you have made your calling and your Election sure.

Philada Feby. 22d. 1798

DEAR JUDGE

You enquire about Merchandising — It is bad enough,
God knows — I have often wished myself back in Otsego—
Francis, our old Friend Charles, set off for your Country
about a week ago — I should have written to you by him
but I had heard of your being in New York — We are all busy
about electing a Senator in the State Legislature — the con-
test is between Benj. R. Morgan, a Gentleman, and conse-
quently a Federalist, and a Dirty stinking antifederal
Tavern keeper, called Israel Israels— But Judge the

g>ome ©Ib Hetter* 161

Friends to order here don't understand the business — they
are uniformly beaten — we used to order these things better
at Cooperstown — Please remember me to your family and
believe me always

Your

RICHD. R. SMITH

Philada. March isth, 1802.

DEAR SIR

Miss Morris will leave this City to day to join her Father
in New York, he is confined there by a severe cold caught
in travelling which prevented his coming on here for her —
Your daughter Nancy would have accompanied Miss M.
but -I united with Mrs. Fullerton in prevailing upon her to
postpone that measure either till she heard from you, or
till the unpleasant circumstance of her Brother William at
Princeton shall be cleared up — You have unquestionably
heard of the destruction of Princeton College by Fire —
The manner in which this accident happened has given rise
to many conjectures, the most general of which I believe
is that it was burned by an accidental communication of a
spark to the Roof, but some either from malicious or other
motives have insinuated that it was done designedly by
some of the students, and I am sorry to find that your son
William's name has been mentioned as concerned — As
far as I can learn the circumstances which gave rise to sus-
picion of William, was a Negro girl, belonging to a Tavern
Keeper with whom William had had a quarrel, swore before
a magistrate (either of her own accord or by the contrivance
of her master) that he had offered her money to set Fire to
her Master's House — Upon the strength of this I under-
stand William will not be permitted to leave Princeton,
till a meeting of the Trustees, which I understand will take
place soon. Things being thus circumstanced I concluded

162 3Ugenb* of a ^tortfjern Countp

it would be best for Nancy to remain here for the present,
for the account had reached her quite as soon or sooner
than it did me — She wishes you very much either to come
on for her yourself, or send Isaac, and I promised to join
her in endeavoring to pursuade you — indeed although I have
the most decided confidence in William's principles, and
have no doubt of his being cleared of this imputation to
the satisfaction of all his Friends, yet, I think it would be
best for you to come on — I heard nothing of all this till
Saturday night. I shall write to day to William to know
whether I can be of any service to him — My wife is con-
fined to her chamber by a severe indisposition, or I would
have been up to Princeton.

With much haste,

I remain yours

R. R. SMITH

The following letters, signed Elihu Phinney, were
written to William Cooper by the owner and publisher
of the first newspaper issued in Cooperstown ; he writes,
shortly after his arrival on November 4th, 1796:

"Cooperstown is about 75 pr cent below Proof — no
life — no society — no Telegraphe — let me hear from you
as soon as convenient."

This may have been due to homesickness. Judging
from his later letters this lack of life and interest van-
ished. The list of criminals given in his letter of 1799
must not be considered as characteristic of the village;
I think that they were political offenders, as at that

£>ome ©Ib better* 163

time a bitter partisan fight was under way in this section
of the country.

Cooperstown, Jan. 4, 1796

HON. SIR,

Your kind favours of the Qth, I3th, & 15, are duly re-
ceived; and have afforded me a pleasing confirmation, that
distance and high station does not obliterate the remem-
brance of your friends. I sincerely wish that the horizon
of Cooperstown could offer something, either pleasing or
interesting to you; but our eyes are turned toward New
York and Philadelphia for our mental food, the ensuing
winter. Your "Sweet little town" remains pretty much in
Statu quo. The buildings erected since your departure,
are, Baldwin's and Holt's Houses, a Brick Store of Mr.
Landon's, a barn of Doct. Gott's, 18 by 24, a barn for Mr.
Huntington, 26 by 24, one for myself, 18 by 24, and a smal
stable on Baldwins lot. The roads are yet nearly impass-
ible, the merchants have not received their goods; and altho'
I have 142 reams of paper at Albany & Schenectady, I have
not been able to procure any; Mr. Harssey has however
been out for Albany and not yet returned.

Eldridge has run off for Canada, to my damage at least
600. and Cooley has absconded £40 in my debt; those
losses are equal to my whole proceeds thro an assiduous
summer ; but I hope by industry to repair the loss.

I have spent but two evenings at Loo since you left town ;
and these were so spent out of respect to our good friend,
the Sheriff, who has been in town at two different times.
Your caution on that point, is a proof of your disinterested
friendship for me, as well as your ardent wishes for the
prosperity of this delightful place; and as such will be
cherished by me with scrupulous regard to your advice.
Mrs. Phinney and Mrs. Noyes present their respectful

1 64 Hegenb* of a J^ortfietn Count?

devoirs to Judge Cooper; our family, and the whole village
have been very healthy, since you left us. The turret of the
Academy missed of being painted for want of oyl, which
could not be procured. I saw Mr. Starr yesterday and
delivered your kind message; he says he is not in the least
discouraged, we immediately opened a subscription for him ;
but he has concluded not to rebuild till spring. Mr.
Andrews, printer, at Stockbridge has mentioned that you
would pay me a small balance due me from him; you will
please to give orders to Mr. Kent; as also respecting two or
three mortgage notices. Do you yet know the result of
what passed betwixt you and myself at the Court-house an
evening or two before you left Cooperstown? — Having
been, I fear, too prolix, I close my letter by assuring you,
that I am,

Hon. Sir, your grateful and
humble servant

ELIHU PHINNEY.
Hon. W. Cooper

Addressed

Honorable William Cooper
Philadelphia.

Cooperstown, Deem. 23, 1799.
HONORED SIR,

Your kind favor, inclosing Claypool's Daily Advertiser
came duly to hand, accept my unfeigned thanks for the
favor.

Inclosed are a memorial and two affidavits, which you
are requested to dispose of in the proper manner, and to
write me the result as soon as known — they are handed to me
by a former acquaintance, Elisha Freeman, a very honest
man ; I conclude they will be handed to the Secretary of State.

Presuming you will not be displeased in knowing the

£>ome ©to Hettera 165

little occurrences in Cooperstown and Vicinity since your
departure I shall recite such as occur to my mind.

Bethel Martin has been admitted to bail in $600.
Reuben Root came and voluntarily surrendered himself on
hearing you had issued a warrant — he is bailed in $500. Her-
rington and a Methodist Priest, Frederick Woodward have
been apprehended and admitted to bail in $500, Alexander
Truby has been apprehended and stands committed. I have
written to the Governor, requesting a special commission
for their Trial, and am informed, not officially that he
has complied. The guard is still kept up and very good
order is observed in the Gaol. Me Donald is liberated and
is preaching on the Hartwick, much chagrined at not being
invited to stay in Cooperstown — The Society have sent
for and obtained a Priest from Johnstown by name of
Sweetman — B. Wight has resigned his office of Gaoler,
and Charles Mudge is deputed — Jo. Strong has sued me
for defamation for saying he had taken fees on both sides.
I shall want your evidence — he behaves since his late tri-
umph with more insolence than ever — Geo. Walker has
got a fine boy, and all well — Capt. Sprague has erected a
Billiard table; there has as yet been no betting, or very
trifling and I believe it will demolish card playing, and I
hope will have no bad effect. — E. Tillotson has given I.
Ingals a general Power of Attorney and absconded. Calvin
Wright has become bankrupt, and contemplates taking the
Benefit of the Insolvent Act. Old Peck and Co. are inde-
fatigable in their endeavors to procure an entirely New
Judiciary for this County — I beg you to be extremely
cautious as to delivery, my private opinion is opposed to
the measure. I hope your wish to retire will give way to the
Public Good — I hope to see you at January Court —
Shall take the earliest opportunity of informing you of
every occurrence of moment.

1 66 Hegenb* of a JBtottftetn Count?

The election of Mr. Sedgwick to the Chair is a happy
presage of the predominance of Federal principles in the
House of Representatives — I find the Senate has given a
sort of silent disapprobation of the late Mission to France,
that is a subject, in my opinion, which should be delicately
handled. It is certainly unpalatable; but may be politi-
cally expedient.

Must we be still plagued, cheated and insulted, by that
Pest to Society, that Scourge to Cooperstown, Jo. Strong
as Post-master? It is the united wish of all true friends to
the interest of the County that an honest man should be
appointed. Perceiving you begin to yawn at the prolixity
of this epistle, I shall close by wishing you health and
happiness —

I remain,

Honored Sir,

your unfeigned Friend and
humble servant

E. PHINNEY.

Honorable William Cooper,
in Congress,

Philadelphia

Cooperstown Feb. 21, 1800

HON'D SIR,

I sent you about 6 weeks ago 2 packages enclosing peti-
tions and affidavits from some men in Worcester, accom-
panied by a letter giving a circumstantial account of the
little occurrences in Cooperstown and having received no
acknowledgment of the receipt of the same I fear they have
miscarried, or, that the infamous Scape goat has suppressed
your answer. Be so good as send me word thro' the Cherry-
Valley Post-office, for the continued villainy of Jo Strong is
insufferable. Last Sunday the mail lay over till Monday

g>ome ©to Hetter* 167

morning; nor could any one except his small junto procure
either a letter or paper, altho* on Sunday evening repeated
applications were made, and the room constantly full of
people.

You have no doubt, ere this heard that the late honorable
Council on the last day of their sitting ordered a Super-
sedeas for me. The County is alive with indignation and
apprehension. I cannot predict what the result will be;
but hope for the best. Your son Richard is so busily en-
gaged in the business as to almost prevent his attention to
any other.

I remain, Hon. Sir,

with great respect

your obedt. humble servt.

E. PHINNEY.
Hon. W. Cooper

Eliphalet Nott to Judge Cooper

Cherry Valley Dec. 2 1796.

To JUDGE COOPER — SIR —

Your goodness will pardon me for troubling you on a
subject so uninteresting to yourself. My reasons are partly
the intimations you gave me at Cooperstown, of affording
me some assistance provided I purchased the half of Mr
Waldo's farm — but more especially the humanity of your
character — Mr Waldo has obtained from Wm Banior in
behalf of Clark a durable Lease of his farm — &c — I have
bought of Mr Waldo & am to make all the payments before
the first of April next — I wish to hire eight or nine hun-
dred dollars to be paid in yearly payments two hundred
dollars cash —

Now Sir if you will be so kind as to direct Mr Kent to let
me have the whole or part of the some mentioned you will

1 68 HLegenb* of a jBtortfjern Count?

greatly oblige one of your fellow creatures, 'tho not a per-
sonal acquaintance — As security I will propose Judg.
Hudson, Luther Rich or O. L. Waldo, as sharers of the ob-
ligations in company with me — or give you a mortgage of
the farm — I am sensible Sir it may cause you some
trouble being so far off — but the obligingness of your char-
acter assures me your assistance notwithstanding if it be with-
in your power — I wish you sir, to be so kind as to write me
what you will do respecting the business as soon as it is con-
venient— and if you can do me this favor at all or any part of
it — you will please to write to Mr Kent on the subject . . .
I am sir with great esteem &
Respect your

Friend & most

Obed

Jud. Cooper- ELIPHALET NOTT.

I insert this letter to Judge Cooper to show that
"G. Washington" was a landholder in our vicinity, as
were also Necker and Madame de Stael.

SIR—

The lands which I hold on, or near the Mohawk river, are
in Partnership with Mr. Clinton (late Govr- of New York)
who has had, and continues still to have by a power of
Attorney the disposal of them.

It is not in my power to inform you at what price he has
lately sold any — but of this you can easily be informed by a
line to that Gentleman or if you desire it, I will write to
him myself on the subject.

I am Yr Obed* Ser.

G. WASHINGTON.

Saturday )
20th Feby j I79

g>ome ©to Uetter* 169

I have nothing to show where "G. Washington's"
land was situated. James Necker's tract consisted
of twenty- three thousand acres, in McComb's Pur-
chase, St. Lawrence County; part was in town num-
ber Six and part in " Fitzwilliam " ; both in the third
allotment.

Necker and Judge Cooper had a partnership agree-
ment as to this land, still existing among my old papers.
It was with reference to it that Necker's daughter, after
his death, wrote as follows :

Coppet — on the i;th of October 1804
Switzerland

SIR,—

I have received the agreement you have made for my
lands, with Mr? Morris and LeRay. I sent to Mr? Le-Ray
and Bayard, my respectable correspondents, the author-
isation to accept, or refuse, or modificate the agreement.

They have all my trust. If they accept, I shall be very
happy to entertain an en sut correspondance with you.
And I am sure by the praises which my friends have given
to your character, that you will not consider this transac-
tion as a mere affair of interest, but that you will take pleas-
ure in increasing the fortune of a mother of three children,
and of a daughter of M. Necker. I pray you, Sir, to
render our communication rapid, what ever may be the
distance which separates us, to send your letters open
to me, by the way of M1? LeRay and Bayard, they will
join their observations to your letters, and I shall answer
immediately.

Excuse me, Sir, for my ignorance of a foreign language.

170 Hegenfcg of a J^ortfjern County

I can read it perfectly well, but this is the first time I did
venture to write in it.

In every language, believe me, Sir,
yours &c

NECKER BNE STAEL DE
HOLSTEIN.
Mr le juge Cooper.

Hannah Cooper to her brother Isaac.

This letter is undated but is indorsed "Miss Cooper,
June 25.-July 3rd., 1798, received in Albany." It is
interesting as showing that Isaac Cooper went to school
at Reverend Thomas Ellison's at Albany, where James
was sent two years later. The "Jim" mentioned is
James Fenimore Cooper.

Mr. Isaac Cooper

Reverend Thomas Ellison
Albany.

Nancy tells me in her letter that you ask me to write to
you. I am happy to do it, or any thing else my dear
Brother that you wish — but should have been more happy
if the request had been made in a letter of your own. I
should have been pleased with the attention, but now hope
I shall soon have the pleasure of hearing from you, pray
how do you like Albany ? what are your studies ? and who
your companions? the last thing is of vast consequence,
and I sincerely hope you may not become intimate or ac-
quainted with the low, vicious Boys of which you have so
many around you. Mama is much better, the Boys are
well, Jim has grown almost as large as William, the Doctor

£>ome ©Ib Hetter* 171

has grown also, they are very wild and show plainly they
have been bred in the Woods, they go to school and are
learning Latin. I do not know what progress they make,
but hope you will make a great improvement in your learn-
ing, pray write soon and believe me your affectionate sister

ANNA COOPER

Philadelphia June 25

While this letter is signed "Anna Cooper" it was
written by Hannah, who seems to have been at that
time often called Anna. Nancy was her younger
sister Anna who became Mrs. George Pomeroy and for
whom the old stone house was built on the corner of
River and Main streets.

Judge Cooper made every effort to educate his sons.
In addition to the schools at Cooperstown, two of them,
probably William and Richard, went to a school in
Schenectady. Isaac and James went to Rev. Thomas
Ellison's, at St. Peter's Rectory, Albany. James went
to Yale and was expelled in his junior year, William
went to Princeton and was also expelled, I think. I do
not know what, if any, colleges the others went to.

Hannah Cooper to
Mr. Isaac Cooper,
Mrs. Simmons,

No. 7 North Sixth Street, Philadelphia

DEAR ISAAC You observe I begin in this old fashioned way
— being so sensible of your worth since your absence — that
no address save an affectionate one would correspond with
my sentiments. I have just returned from hearing a new

172 Hegenb* of a Jflorfljern Count?

Minister, who is offered a situation here — his name is Lewis
— from New England — his discourse was very agreeable —
could we get him — we shall have no occasion to lament Mr
Me Donald's absence. Our friend and neighbour Mrs.
Dunham is below — about to take a Sunday's dinner with
us — and little Amelia Osborne these two with A. B. are all
we have in addition to our own number — and I suppose
you think a part of these sufficient to make us happy — her
amiable manners and character do indeed delight us, but
we are beginning to anticipate her loss — which most prob-
ably will now shortly happen — Ann has been writing to
her. there you must look for particulars — Saw Katy
and Cousin at Church — a pretty looking little girl this last —
The Doctor visits us sometimes, he pines after you — at
least he says so. I do not know if you Gentlemen be sincere
when you say such things of each other, when speaking of
the ladies, we do not expect truth. Uncle James has re-
moved to the Mills. Of course our Hart wick rides are
less frequent than formerly — the New Bridge, "Isaac and
Mary," has been carried away by the flood — at least ma-
terially damaged. I hope this is not an unhappy prog-
nostic— The girls I conclude have informed you that
Capt. Cooper has left us — What do you mean by abusing
the Philadelphia ladies, they are very handsome, and very
elegant I am sure. — Write to me to explain this matter
and consider me your affectionate sister —

HANNAH COOPER

Cooperstown April I3th 1800

Hannah Cooper to Isaac Cooper,

Cooperstown, April 26 1800

MY DEAR ISAAC — We are as well as can be expected — yes
as well as can be expected, for two hours ago — the amiable

g>ome ©to Hetter* 173

interesting and charming M. A. M. left us — You have
been remiss in not writing lately

Henry complains — Nancy scolds — there is another who
feels it although she neither complains nor scolds — We
wish to have particular accounts of you — when are we to
look for you home? This summer or not? Take care of
your old stockings and bring them with you, in haste your
affectionate sister

HANNAH COOPER
Mr. Isaac Cooper.

"Charming M. A. M." was Mary Ann Morris, who a
little later married Isaac Cooper. Fenimore Cooper in
his unfinished Sketch of Otsego Hall mentioned her as
having spent part of the winter of 1800 there.

William Cooper to

William Cooper Junior
Princeton College,

New Jersey July 9, 1800

DEAR WILLIAM

You have not written me since my return to Coopers-
town. I am anxious to hear of your advancement, and
calculate on your being the first of scholars, knowing that
your abilities and memory are equal to any of your age;
and you have everything to make you ambitious; here is a
great country and no young man has such an opportunity
as yourself of being the first man in it. On your industry
depends whether you are to be the great good and useful
man — or nothing. I have it in contemplation to send
you to Edinborough or London for two or three years
before you launch into life and after you have the sanction

174 1Lt&tvto& of a Jlortfjern Count?

of that first of schools at Princeton, to which you may if you
please be an Honour and make its tutors and governors
Proud to claim you as a Product of that institution; and I
will say it again — you have the ability and may if you will

WM. COOPER.

On the inside of this sheet is the following by Hannah
Cooper:

DEAR BROTHER — it is very late at night — nobody in the
house up — save myself — and Mama, who is playing upon the
Organ — this amusement engages her every night after the
family have separated, and very pretty effect it has, being
not unlike a serenade, which you know is the manner of
courting with the Spaniards — it must be charming for the
Spanish Belles — but very toilsome for their Beaus — The
Weather is now uncommonly warm here, our fourth of July
passed very brilliantly away — there were not any fire works
but the Masonic Hall was handsomely illuminated — the
Lads and Lasses repaired in the evening to our House —
and we had quite a large party to dance ' ' rallying round our
library " Sister Nancy has not returned from Sister Mary's
yet. We expect her in a day or two Mr. Fitch has
Richard's Farm — he removes there shortly. Doctor grows
quite tall, is nearly as large as James — the family desire
their love, — Good night — may your dreams be sweet

Your loving sister HANNAH COOPER
Cooperstown July 12, 1800

J. Fenimore Cooper to Isaac Cooper

Albany Sept. 5 1801

CORPORAL

I sit down to write to you by the desire of Mrs. Ellison
who wishes me to ask you to send by the most careful person

©Ib netted 175

you can find coming this way the very finest piece of cambric
muslin you have got, in your Store. Such as Mrs. Banyer
got. Sisters & Papa left this, this morning Papa gave me
70 dollars for to pay some debts and as I went to Mr.
Banyers to see them start I either lost them a going or after
I came to Mr. Banyers I do not know which, I searcht for
them but they have not yet shown their faces, Sisters both
where in good health, likewise Papa, Lieut. Cooper is a
recruiting here, you must excuse mistakes bad writing as I
am in a great hurry.

JAMES COOPER
Mr. Isaac Cooper
Cooperstown.

W. Cooper to B. Walker
DEAR SIR

the land is yet in despute. I have obtained two decrees
against Judge Livingston, he now applys to the court of
Errors. I think that it belongs to him, if to me a division
will be desirable.

why are you not at the Post of duty, of Honour, of danger,
of Every thing that is disquieting to a man whose views are
honest, of Everything that is instructive to the man who
wishes to learn the art of, Hook & Snivery — if there is such
a word, or if their is not, I now make it.

Adieu

WM. COOPER.

Jany. 6, 1802
B Walker Esq.

J. H. Imlay visited Judge Cooper at Cooperstown in
the summer of 1800, with General Bloomfield. It is to
this visit which he refers repeatedly in his letters. He

176 Hegente of a J^tortfjern Countp

evidently was in love with Hannah Cooper, and as late as
1810, the date of his last letter, was true to her memory.

His correspondence throws an interesting light on the
monument set up in 1 80 1 or 2 at the spot where she was
killed in October, 1800 ; it was made in Philadelphia under
his supervision and Richard R. Smith's ; one of the inscrip-
tions, which cover three sides^of the shaft, was written by
him, one by a Mrs. Meredith, and one by a Miss Wistar,
both of Philadelphia ; the fourth side was to have had an in-
scription written by Mrs. Jepson, of New York or Albany,
and a Mrs. Beach, then living in Virginia ; for some reason
this latter inscription never was put on the monument.

The inscriptions referred to as they now appear on
the monument read as follows :

SOUTH SIDE

Sacred to the Memory of

Miss Hannah Cooper, Daughter

of the Honble William Cooper

and Elizabeth his Wife.

In the bloom of Youth, in perfect

health, and surrounded with her

Virtues

On the loth day of September, 1800
She was instantly translated from

this World
Thrown from her horse, on the spot

g>ome ©ft Hetter* 177

on which this monument is erected.

Sensible, gentle, amiable,
In life beloved, in death lamented,

By all who knew her.
Unconscious of her own perfections
She was a stranger to all ambition
but that of doing good.

By her death

The tender joys of an affectionate
Father, the fond expectations of

a delighted Mother
In an instant were blasted !

Passenger — Stop !
And for a moment reflect —
That neither accomplishment of

Person

Nor great improvements of mind

Nor yet greater goodness of heart,

Can arrest the hand of death.

But — She was prepared for that

Immortality, in which she believed

And of which she was worthy —

To departed worth & excellence

This monument is erected.
This tribute of affection is inscribed
By a friend, this ist day of January, 1801.

178 Hegenb* of a Jlort&ent Count?

NORTH SIDE

For thee, sweet Maid,

Resplendent beams of thought,

Wisdom's rich love,

By Seraph's hands, were given

Thy spotless soul,

The pure effulgence caught,

It sparkled — was exhaled —

And went to Heaven.

'Twas thine—

To animate life's swift career,

Mild — modest — artless —

Innocently gay,

Twas thine — to fill an higher

Nobler sphere —

With sainted spirits

In the realms of day,

Thy native worth

With diamond pen enrolled,

Beyond this sculptured

Monument shall live.

And charity —

Of fair ethereal mould

A lasting tribute

To thy memory give.

feome ©to better* 179

EAST SIDE

The sculptured marble

The recording tomb,

Shall mouldering perish

In the hand of time.

Thy weeping friends,

Be gathered to their home

And memory cease

To mark thy shrine.

Some hoary moss,

Some drooping willow'd shade.

Or decent sod,

Or still more humble dust

Shall guard the spot

Where thou art laid

In long

Oblivious silence lost.

Yet shall thy virtues,

Thou dear sainted maid,

By friends transmitted

Thro' succeeding years;

Be still remembered

'Til e'en time shall fade,

When thou released

From mortal cares,

i8o Hesenb* of a Jlorrtjern Count?

Shall live triumphant
In a happier world —

J. A. Imlay to R. F. Cooper

Allen Town New Jersey Mar. 2Qth 1803

MY DEAR SIR

... I greet you with my best friendship and good
wishes. The recollection of the many happy hours, which
my last visit to Cooperstown afforded me, has often induced
the wish to become an inhabitant of your pleasant and
charmingly situated village — But alas! With that desire
is associated the recollection of a catastrophe at once the
most melancholy, the most painful, and affective of my
life, even time itself — which with lenient hand — is said to
mitigate sorrow — and reconcile affliction — will never from
my mind efface the recollection of that event — no, I shall
ever remember — and ever lament it — . . .

I most sincerely and fervently reciprocate the good
wishes of yourself — and the family — and I beg you to pre-
sent me to each one — in terms of the most cordial good will
and regards — and believe me —

Very sincerely your

friend

J. H. IMLAY.

P. S. Miss J. Imlay feels herself much gratified in the
kind remembrance of her — by your sister and desires to
present her love in return.

Richard F. Cooper, esquire
Coopers Town

Otsego Co.,
New York.

&>ome ©to Hetter* 181

Alexander Hamilton to Judge Cooper.

New York, September 6, 1802

DEAR SIR

I congratulate you and myself on your victory over
Brockholst. Whether your interest is much promoted by it
or not is of small consequence — In the triumph of vanquish-
ing such an enemy. That you know was your principal in-
ducement and I know that you will be willing to pay well
for it.

I have been deliberating whether to charge you 200 or
100 pounds for my services in this cause. In fixing upon
the latter, I am afraid I shall offend you. But I love to
show my moderation & therefore whether you are angry or
not I will only have One hundred.

This I beg you to remit without delay — I have been
building a fine house and am very low in cash; so that it will
be amazingly convenient to me to touch your money as
soon as possible.

I wish you many pleasant moments and that you may be
able to steer clear of the Court of Errors. I have fought
so hard for you that I am entirely exhausted.

Yours with great regard,

A. HAMILTON

The Brockholst referred to was Brockholst Living-
ston and the dispute was over the title to certain
lands in the western part of the State.

Aaron Burr to Judge Cooper

Philada 26 Feb. 1793
SIR:—

Upon my arrival in this city a few days past, I had the
pleasure to receive your letter of the iQth ult. which had I
suppose lain some time in the office here during my absence.

1 82 3Ugenb6 of a j^ortfjern County

I thank you much for your Civility in regard of the
K. Kill Land, but I observe with extreme surprize that you
would suppose me capable of deceiving or misleading you in
the smallest particular. On the 18 or 19 Dec Mr. Cutting
conveyed to me in fee simple all the lands late Griswold
at K. K. (two or three lots which had been sold excepted)
together with a small farm at Lonenburgh. I came soon
after to this City, the Deed and all the papers remaining
in my possession and having then no intention to part with
the Land; Indeed I went to some trouble and expense to
settle the claim of Lott &c. — About the last of Jan. I re-
turned to N. York and then agreed with Mr. C. to sell

him the Land again for a certain sum more than I had given,
and did thereupon re-convey them to him — This sum
together with that part of the purchase money which I had
paid, are secured to me by a Mortgage now on record in
Albany — I believe I apprized you of this reconveyance,
by Letter written on or about the Day it was executed —

I beg you to pardon the trouble of this trifling detail,
(which is intended only to satisfy you of my Candor in the
business,) and to be assured that I am
Very respectfully,

Yr. Obedtt. St.

AARON BURR.

The following letter relates to the building of Christ
Church, Cooperstown. The copy in my possession
does not show to whom it was written.

Cooperstown July 13, 1806

DEAR SIR—

Your letter on Various subjects has just come to hand —
which I take in order.

The vote of the Vestry of Trinity Church to give the

g>ome ©to Hetter* 183

society of Episcopalians in and round Cooperstown, 1500
Dollars when they had finished the church under contempla-
tion will no doubt warme the hearts and create a Joy amongst
them to think they are still had in remembrance by their
opulent Brethren — as to myself it does not meet fully what
I expected. Under other circumstances the Donation is a
liberal one for which the Vestry ought to be thanked, — but
as I am not of that Society, tho' I love them, and led into the
measure solely from the good that is manifest since Mr.
Nash has brought them together and frequently hearing
my Poor neighbors lament their inability to bring up their
children in the way they had been brought by their fathers.
But three days ago I lodged with a farmer — he had his har-
vest hands round him — in the morning he called them all to-
gether, he and his wife kneeling, he read Prayers and all was
quiet — The effect of such things are better felt than ex-
pressed but on this ocation it is proper you should know my
motive for offering to Do what I expect but very few of
your wealthy members within the Pale of your church
would do for their own cause — tho' I consider it as Every
Mans cause — and I have thought for two or more years
back that our political welfare depended much on adhearing
to the rules of religion — But I cannot act under a mark of
suspicion — had the donation been in $500. annual instal-
ments and mine the same — I could have gone on with the
Church — yet I should then have thought the great wealth
of your church ought to give $500 more than an Individual
not of that Church — I am conscious that the Vestry may
have had their donations illy appropriated, but in all my
undertakings had one not been carried into effect — they
might suspect this to fail and by a careful vote first see my
money paid for the Church; and if done to Expectations,
refunded Part — religious societys ought not to grind their
Poor connections or liberal friends.

1 84 Hegettb* of a J^orrtjern Count?

The Vestry gave to Utica Church $2,000. around which
all the rich are Churchmen — not so here — all the Rich are
presbyterians and other persuasions. I wish you would
get them to change the business so I can act as with my
friends — and the church shall be done, God willing.

W
(unaddressed copy)

Lady Hay to Richard F. and Isaac Cooper

Quebec — lyth March — 18010

Will the much estimated sons of an invaluable, lamented
Friend, accept of the sincere condolence and unaffected
sympathy of One who tho' not personally acquainted with
you is no Stranger to your worth — Which was the Theme,
and Pride of him, that swerved not from Truth, who it has
pleased Heaven to deprive you of — Yours My Friends, per-
mit me to rank you so, is a loss in which many will partici-
pate, for universal philanthropy and Benevolence of Heart,
in continual exercise for the welfare of his Fellow creatures,
were the leading Characteristics of your now Sainted
Father — As to myself, much have I been indebted to him
for Friendship and attention to my Interest, which for
many years he has been so good as to take charge of — and
had I been deprived of a Brother I cou'd not have felt it
more — Nor ever, will the recollection of his many acts of
kindness, be obliterated from my memory — To every In-
dividual of your Family I can never be indifferent, and beg
of you to present me, as a partaker in their Grief to your
respected Mother and Sister, the latter of whom, I have
understood to be the amiable counter-part of the dear de-
parted Hannah Cooper who I had the utmost affection
for and therefore am convinced how deeply She is afflicted.
My Draft, excuse my speaking upon Business, for Two

£>ome Olb betters 185

Hundred Dollars, was Protested, owing I suppose to the
Tenant of my House in Fair Street not coming forward in
due time with the quarters Rent payable the ist of Nov.
but was afterwards paid — and if you will excuse- the liberty
I take in saying, if you wou'd be so very good as to get
somebody in New York to receive the Feb. Quarter, I
should be very much obliged — The Tenant is Mrs. Violetta
Taylor— No. 34 Fair Street— The Rent Five Hundred and
Twenty five Dollars pr. year — Directing it, at the same
time to be mentioned to her the hope and expectation that
she will be ready as soon as possible after the ist of May,
with the quarters Rent then due — Soon after which Period
(My Husband having obtained a short leave of absence
from his Regiment for the purpose of accompanying me) I
shall have the pleasure of calling upon you at Cooper's Town,
in my way to New York, and conferring with you on the
Business, that my late excellent Friend so kindly took
charge of, meanwhile do me the favor to believe, you nor
yours, have not a more sincere well-wisher than —

ANN HAY.

On the 24th of April, my Best of Friends sold for me
through the Medium of Mr. Leonard Bleecker Broker at
New York Twenty One shares that I held in the Bank of
Jersey, and bought in their stead Eighteen Shares in
the Combined Bank of Manhattan and Utica — Which he
judged better for me from it's being nearer Canada, and
more to my advantage from it's giving Surplus Dividends —
The Shares are in the name of your Father, and I have his
acknowledgment that they are mine — May I crave your
attention to such Interest as may result from it — But
as from some particular reasons, this circumstance has
been known only to your Father, My Sister in Law Miss
Hay, and myself wou'd wish it, if you please, to rest con-

1 86 Hegenbg of a J^ortfjern Counts

fidentially with his Successors, or shou'd it be too trouble-
some to them, at least until I shall have the satisfaction of
seeing them — Nevertheless, as I shou'd be singularly obliged
by your taking the trouble to say you have received this,
and that you are to be at Home in the month of May, I
shall consider it a still further favor that you only Notice
this last mentioned matter by Observing that you have a
perfect knowledge of the extent of the Trust reposed by me in
your late most truly Good Father — accept my best apologies
for all this trouble. —

The writer of the foregoing, Ann Hay, was at the
time Lady Hay; she was the daughter of Sheffield
Howard, a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk, who
married his tutor's sister and came to New York.
Howard was a great friend of Judge Cooper's and be-
fore his death asked the Judge to care for his daughter.
She married first, Major Charles Bingham, and their
daughter, Ann Howard Bingham, married Clement
Biddle Penrose.

Ann Hay's correspondence is very amusing and
voluminous; she devotes much thought to concealing
from her husbands the whereabouts and amount of her
property. She was always in need of money ; wrote on
very heavy, fine paper with gilded edge, and with a
most flattering and persuasive pen.

The large number of her letters which are still among
Judge Cooper's correspondence almost justify the en-
thusiasm of the writer of the following, which is inserted

g>ome ©to Hetter* 187

here, out of its chronological order, so as to follow the
one letter of hers included among those selected as bear-
ing on the early days of Cooperstown and its people :

J. H. Imlay to Wm. Cooper

Allentown June isth, 1805.
MY DEAR FRIEND

Your favour of the 1 8th ult. did not reach me until a few
days since owing to my absence from home, dancing at-
tendance on the long, troublesome, vexcatious and expensive
lawsuit of my mothers before the Court of Chancery of your
State which has been sitting for sometime in New York —
It was set down for Argument in August last — but the
death of the great, and good, and ever to be lamented
Hamilton prevented the hearing then coming on — It was
again set down for argument about the middle of May last,
and continued from day to day, under the hope and ex-
pectation that it would have a hearing — when the Chan-
cellor about loth inst. adjourned the Court — So it is —
put in the glorious uncertainty, the abominable vexcation
and procrastination of the law — of which prof essionaly and
otherwise I am heartily sick and tired — This suit has now
in some way or shape been pending between 8 and 9 years —
and has in one way and another cost upwards of $700,
besides all my trouble, time &c. &c. and what may be worse
than all the rest, is, I fear, that the loss of Hamilton, may
be attended with a loss of the cause.

A few days after the receipt of your letter, I reed, one
from your friend Mrs. Hay — I need not tell you how cheer-
fully & with what alacrity I shall attend to the request
expressed in your letter — And make it my particular and
personal business to see the land — and obtain the best in-

1 88 Hegenb* of a J&ortfjern Count?

formation, as to the value thereof & the terms of compromise
& settlement — and advise her thereof, without delay —
But pray, my friend, who is this female friend of yours? I
seem to have some sort of recollection of her, but so im-
perfect as to amount to nothing — Her letter in every
respect does her very great credit — and except the letters
of her, who alas! alas! is no more — whose hard, hard fate
I can never cease to lament — whose many excellencies &
virtues, I delight to recollect & mention, and whose memory
I must always cherish and love, it is one of the best letters
from a female, I ever saw — Independent of your recom-
mendation, the letter of your friend would secure to her my
best services & exertions — The style and manner of her
letter is at once so truly polite, so bland, urbane, handsome,
that I am extremely desirous to become acquainted with
and learn her life history — of which last, I must beg you to
inform me as early as possible — These have led me to
form an opinon of her which I have much curiosity to know
how far it is correct — And as I shall have shortly to write

to Mrs. H , I should wish to hear from you previous

thereto — I have not since the summer of 1800 felt much
like getting in love — but really the style and manner of the
letter of your friend are so much like those of her, whose
memory I have just alluded to, that I am not without much
admiration, I desire of an acquaintance with your friend —
I wish to write a line to Richard, by our mail of to day —
must therefore conclude, with the assurances of my affec-
tionate regards & good will to yourself & the family —
I am yours &c

J. H. IMLAY
Addressed —

The Honble Judge Cooper
Cooperstown
New York

feome ©to Hetter* 189

J. H. Imlay to R. F. Cooper

Allentown Febuy 12 1810
MY FRIEND

Not until a short time since did the melancholy intelli-
gence that Judge Cooper was no more reach me. As a
friend from whom I had reed many acts of kindness & good
will — and the father of yourself and of her whose memory I
yet love, and hold in great veneration and affection, much
do I lament his death — and tenderly & sincerely sympa-
thize with yourself & family in your affliction & bereave-
ment.

Said your sister to me, in our last walk along the Banks of
your river on the evening before I left Coopers Town — as
passing by the Grave Yard in the rear of your Father's
House — "how long, think you, it may be, ere myself or you
— and many more of our friends, may become inhabitants
of that Mansion" ? pointing to the Grave Yard — I replied —
"I hope long." "Ah! no"— she said— as to herself— "it
will not be long — Some ten — twenty or thirty years will
number us all among its inhabitants. What an inch of
time — What a drop in the great ocean of eternity — "
Prophetic words indeed as to herself 'Tho sometimes —

"So concealed the hour and remote the fear —
"Death still draws nearer — never seeming near"

and with great truth does the poet add —

' ' Great Standing miracle ! That Heaven assigned ' '
"Its only thinking thing, this turn of mind"

When your feelings and convenience will permit, will you
oblige me with some account of your Father's illness &

Hesettb* of a J^ortJjent Count?

death — And accept for yourself & the family, the unfeigned
sympathy and condolence of

Your friend

J. H. IMLAY

Richard F. Cooper, Esq.,
Coopers Town
New York

James Fenimore Cooper to R. F. Cooper

New York, May i8th, 1810

I wrote you yesterday, a letter in a great hurry, as its
contents are of some importance, I employ the leisure time
offered today, to inform you more fully of my views.

When you were in the city, I hinted to you, my intention
of resigning at the end of this session of congress, should
nothing be done for the navy — my only reason at that time
was the blasted prospects of the service. I accordingly
wrote my resignation and as usual offer'd it to Capt. Law-
rence, for his inspection — he very warmly recommended to
me to give the service the trial of another year or two, at
the same time offering to procure me a furlough which
would leave me perfect master of my actions in the interval.
I thought it wisest to accept this proposition — at the end
of this year I have it in my power to resign should the
situation of the Country warrant it.

Like all the rest of the sons of Adam, I have bowed to
the influence of the charms of fair damsel of eighteen. I
loved her like a man and told her of it like a sailor. The
peculiarity of my situation occasioned me to act with some-
thing like precipitancy — I am perfectly confident however,
I shall never have cause to repent of it. As you are cooly
to decide, I will as cooly give you the qualities of my mis-
tress. Susan De Lancey is the daughter of a man of very

g>ome ©Ib Hettertf 191

respectable connections and a handsome fortune — amiable,
sweet tempered and happy in her disposition — She has
been educated in the country, occasionally trying the
temperature of the City to rub off the rust — but hold a
moment, it is enough she pleases me in the qualities of her
person and mind. Like a true Quixotic lover, I made
proposals to her father — he has answered them in the most
gentlemanly manner — You have my consent to address my
daughter if you will gain the approbation of your mother.
He also informs me that his daughter has an estate in the
County of Westchester in reversion, secured to her by a
deed of trust to him, and depend — upon the life of an aunt
Aetat 72 — so you see, Squire, the old woman cant weather
it long. I write all this for you — you know I am indifferent
to anything of this nature. Now I have to request you
will take your hat and go to mother, the boys, girls, and
say to them have you any objections that James Cooper
shall marry at a future day, Susan de Lancey — If any of
them forbids the bans may the Lord have forgiven them,
for I never will. Then take your pen and write to Mr.
De Lancey stating the happiness and pleasure it will give
all the family to have this connection completed — all this I
wish you to do immediately as I am deprived of the pleasure
of visiting my flame, until this be done, by that confounded
bore delicacy, — be so good as to enclose the letter in one to
me, at the same time dont forget to enclose a handsome sum
to square the yards here and bring me up to Cooperstown.
I wish not to interrupt you in your attempt to clear the
estate, My expenditures shall be as small as possible.

Your Brother

JAMES COOPER.

Richard Fenimore Cooper Esquire
Cooperstown
New York

192 Hesenb* of a JBtortftern Count?

Isaac Cooper to J. Fenimore Cooper

Cooperstown isth Dec. 1817

MY DEAR JAS,

Our niece Hannah Cooper was buried on Friday last after
an illness of a fortnight, a singular, as well as a most savage
circumstance happened on that day. The Cary Family
came down to attend the funeral, Cornelius, Eliza, Richard's
wife and two blacks, returned home in the evening, the two
first after having drank very freely at Mrs. Clarkes stopped
at Williams Tavern at Pierstown and took an additional
supply, after which Cornelius took the whip and reins out
of the servants hands and undertook to drive himself. The
going being very rough and icy and he driving most furi-
ously up hill & down, induced those that were able, to get
out of the waggon — being Richards wife and the two ser-
vants, leaving the other two in the waggon. Cornelius
not being sensible that any one was left in but himself con-
tinued running his Horses full speed till he reached home,
from habit he was enabled to unharness and put his Horses
in the stable after which he went to bed, the rest of the
party who got out, returned about an hour after in the
dark, through rain & mud, when inquiry was made fof
Eliza, when upon search she was found dead on the
bottom of the waggon, having it is presumed fallen
out of her chair and been jolted to death by the rough-
ness of the roads. As the story goes Cornelius when
informed of her death, raised his head a little from the
pillow, replied "then bury her" turned & took his other
nap.

Mrs. Clarke a few days before the death of Poor Hannah
added a daughter to that unfortunate race. She appears
overwhelmed with afflictions. The boys are here and look
very well.

g>ome ©Ib ICetterg 193

Attend to the De Kalb affairs. Danberry is quite
uneasy — but they detain the papers —

Sincerely with respect to wife &
and all the family

I. COOPER

Mrs. Pomeroy buried her

infant about three weeks ago.
James Cooper Esq.
Mamaroneck,

West Chester N. Y.

Goldsborough Cooper to R. Cooper

Hyde April 15, 1827

DEAR DICK

We have had one cotillion party of which she most prob-
ably has given you a full description — we danced until
about three — the gentlemen drank wine as usual, like studs,
and the girls, whew! how they did go on, they put me quite
to the blush, and in that case you can imagine their con-
duct. We have had radishes and sallad for a fortnight
which I imagine is rather more than you can say of
gardens in Hudson — we shall soon have cucumbers.

GOLD.

Richard Cooper Esq.
Hudson.

G. Cooper to R. Cooper

Hyde: I have forgotten the day
of the month but look at the
post mark, 1828

DEAR DICK

Prentiss is soon to take for a handmaid Miss Shankland
and we have had, are having and are about to have an
13

194 Hegenb* of a JBtortfjern Count?

abundance of parties, glees and merry makings. I was at
Morehouses wedding party and at Judge Nelsons — and I
may attend one or two more. Our girls, by these I mean, —
pooh — you know who I mean, look well, are in fine spirits,
step freely, and in fine give every indication of proper
keeping and good condidion. . . .
Good bye

Your affec. Brother

GOLD

Richard Cooper Esq
Hudson

Columbia Co. N. Y.

The following is an invitation to a more formal entertain-
ment and is, perhaps, the first invitation to dine with a
"President of the U. States" received by a resident of this
village. It is in the ^handwriting of G. Washington and
while undated as to year was probably sent in either 1796,
or one of the two following years.

"The President U. States
requests the pleasure of
Mr. Cooper's company to
dine to-day at three o'clock,
Saturday 26 Nov."

TODDSVILLE

WHILE it is not quite in line with the purpose of these
sketches to wander into the history of the hamlet of
Toddsville, I feel that anything bearing on the past
of the County is worth preserving ; certainly where it is
as unique as the recollections of a man in his ninety-
seventh year, born and brought up and now living in
that community, and with an apparently unimpaired
memory. Such a man is Samuel Street Todd living in
the little gothic cottage on the east bank of the Oaks
Creek and overlooking the picturesque ruins of the old
mills of Toddsville, and within sight of the four old
Todd houses built respectively about 1792, 1805, 1811,
and one at a later date, now unknown.

Mr. Todd is bent with years, but clear of mind and
memory and with a voice of wonderful power and tone ;
he is, according to his doctor, going to round out his
full century. To such a man old age can have no
terror.

I spent with him two half days and listened to almost
first-hand tales of the early settlement of the country;
for remembering himself events back of 1830, he of

195

1 96 ICegenbg of a Jlortfjern Count?

course had heard at an age when his memory was most
receptive, the tales and experiences of his elders.

The settlement of Toddsville was the story of the
settlement of many of the little hamlets of western New
York; the millwrights came from New England.

Samuel Todd's story was as follows: About the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century six brothers, of the
name of Todd, and one sister, came from Wallingford,
Conn., to the site of Toddsville, where there was a
water power and a sawmill. The property belonged
to one Tubbs who had bought three hundred acres
from Judge Cooper and built the sawmill. The Todds
bought him out, built a log cabin, and lived in it and in
the Tubbs house which still stands at the head of the
Main Street of Toddsville, facing south. They were a
family of millwrights and of very good New England
stock; there were Johiah, Lemuel, Caleb, Zira, Bethel,
and Achel, and the sister, Augusta. My old friend
was Lemuel's son. They developed the water power
and built in addition to the sawmill, a gristmill, paper
mill, and a woolen (knitting) mill. They ran the mills as
follows: Lemuel and Johiah, the gristmill; Johiah the
woolen mill, and Lemuel the paper and sawmill; Achel
was a doctor and practiced at Middlefield Centre;
Bethel went to Poultneyville. I don't know what
Zira and Caleb did ; but Zira built in 181 1 the fine house
on the west bank of Oaks Creek across from the mill

Cobbstnllc 197

site and lived in it; a Zira, or Ira, made mill stones at
Utica and went to St. Louis; Lemuel lived in the old
Tubbs house and Johiah built, in 1805, and lived in the
house across the road from, and east of the mills.
Caleb's history he did not tell me. Augusta married one
of the Carrs who were grantees of an adjoining four hun-
dred acres ; she and her husband lived in that beautiful
old field-stone house on the road to Fly Creek, dated
1825.

Toddsville flourished and grew into a community
of some hundreds, with upwards of sixty dwellings,
churches, and shops, until modern competition and
transportation killed its mills.

Samuel remembers my great-grandfather, Dr.
Thomas Fuller, and told with glee how, in a -particu-
larly unhealthy year, Dr. Almy of Toddsville "beat"
him; I didn't like to ask whether in deaths or cures.
Dr. Almy bought and lived in Zira Todd's house and
built the remarkable vault at the foot of the hill in his
meadow, overlooking the field and the Oaks Creek.
There, Samuel says, the doctor lies with his daughter.
The outer doors are ajar but held by fallen masonry;
the inner door of glass is securely closed. The vault
interested me, so Samuel told its story as follows : Dr.
Almy, he said, worshipped it and used to sit in the door-
way and smoke evenings, and sometimes young Samuel
sat with him; Mrs. Almy dreaded it, and made her son

198 Hegenb* of a JBtorftern Count?

promise that if she died first he would after his father's
death, move her body to her family burying ground at
Sharon ; this, in due time, he did, and she lies there with
the Mullers.

We had tried to get into the vault and I said, "Some
night I am coming over to open it." After a moment's
hesitation, old Samuel said: "One night, when I was
young, I took a screw driver, got into the vault, and
opened Mrs. Almy's coffin. She had been lying there
some time, and her cheeks (indicating with his hands)
were covered with blue mold!"

He said every one in those days went to the Presby-
terian Church at Coopers town, so when he was old
enough to go to church he was taken there ; he described
the old high pews, taller than he was, and the two-story
pulpit. The modern pews he spoke of contemptu-
ously as "slips." He knew where all the old families
sat — the Bowers, the Fullers, the Prentisses, etc., in-
cluding the pew of my grandmother in which I suffered
as a youth. He recalled Richard Cooper and old
George Clarke and his wife, Ann, and about all the
prominent residents of the village in those days includ-
ing my grandfather.

It was like looking through an open window into the
past.

Years ago Charles W. Smith, who married one of my
mother's sisters, and lived to be nearly as old a man as

Cobbstotllc 199

Samuel Todd, wrote out for me a little sketch of Hope
Factory, and as it throws some light on Toddsville, I
quote from it.

"He (Mr. Smith's father) came with others, in 1806,
after acquiring his trade, to Otsego County, New York,
and engaged in building a cotton mill on the Oaks Creek
at Toddsville, called the Union Cotton Manufactury.
On December 21, 1808, he was specially commissioned
to go east and purchase such machinery as was re-
quired for operating. Contract signed by Rufus Steere
and Jehial Todd.

' ' The factory was built of wood and burned not many
years after and was then replaced by one of stone.

"October, 1809, Mr. Smith was commissioned by the
Union Cotton Mac'f'g. to build, manage, and carry
on a cotton mill at Hopeville, having a long ditch to
convey water from Oaks Creek, nearly half a mile,
thus obtaining a higher head of water, more permanent
and admitting use of an overshot, instead of a breast
wheel for driving the mill. This was to be called Hope
Factory after one of that name in Rhode Island.

"The building was of wood and was used some fifteen
years. Mr. Smith's salary was fixed at $2.00 a day
with firewood and pasturage for horse and cow.

"September 7, 1824, anew mill of stone was con-
tracted for, to be erected a few rods from the old mill-
by Lorenzo Bates, Contractor. Stone from the quar-

200 Eegenb* of a Jlortfjern County

ries of J. R. M. Mills, Evander and Jared Ingalls.
Twelve hundred bushels of lime furnished by Abram
Van Home. Carpenter and joining work by Elisha
Thorneton and George Morris. Cost of this building
was $12,165.79 ($12,165.79)."

This new mill of stone is the Hope Factory still
standing near what is now known as Index.

Sometime after my talk with old Samuel Todd I had
curious confirmation of the soundness of his memory.
He said that the Todd land had come from "Fenimore
Cooper" and that one Tubbs had intervened between
William Cooper and their purchase. I doubted this
and attempted to convince him that the land came from
William through Tubbs. In looking over some old
papers I found a contract of sale between Richard
Fenimore Cooper, the eldest son of William Cooper,
and Jehiel Todd of Northampton, Mass., dated Jan-
uary 22d, 1805, providing for the conveyance to Todd
of "All that farm or tract of land known as Tubbs
Mills" for the sum of "Six thousand three hundred and
twenty silver dollars of the United States of America."
Other papers show that the silver dollars were duly
paid and the land conveyed by Richard Fenimore
Cooper to Jehiel. The property must have been a very
valuable one as the amount paid in 1805 would be the
equivalent of a sum perhaps ten times as great now.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

PRIOR to 1883, Susan Fenimore Cooper repeatedly
promised me to write her recollections of her father,
for her nephews and nieces ; a promise which she started
to fulfill that year by buying a blank book and writing
an introductory note. She did little more for a number
of years, until shortly before her death when she began
seriously to write, but died before she had gotten be-
yond the early years of her life in Paris, about 1827
or 1828.

The following rather disconnected paragraphs I have
selected to print here as throwing an intimate light on
Fenimore Cooper's life and character, which appears
nowhere else, and which ought to be preserved for his
descendants.

My first recollections of my dear Father and Mother go
back to the remote ages when we were living at ' ' Fenimore, ' '
in the farm-house built by your grandfather. I was then
about three years old. Some incidents of that time I re-
member with perfect distinctness, while the intervening
weeks, or months, are a long blank.

Occasionally I was taken to the Hall to see my Grand-
mother, I have a dim recollection of her sitting near a little

201

202 Hegenfc* of a J^otttjetn Count?

table, at the end of the long sofa seen in her picture, with
a book on the table. She always wore sleeves to the elbow,
or little below, with long gloves. She took great delight in
flowers, and the south end of the long hall was like a green-
house in her time. She was a great reader of romances.
She was a marvellous housekeeper, and beautifully nice
and neat in all her arrangements.

The old negro seen in the picture of the Hall was an im-
portant personage in the family, he lived with my grand-
parents twenty years; his name was Joseph, but my Uncles
often called him "the Governor." As you know he is
buried in the family ground. His wife Harris married again
after his death, and lies in the Churchyard, near the front
fence. My Grandfather gave her a house and lot, on what
is now Pine Street. Having no children she left that house
to John Nelson. Harris lived, after my Grandmother's
death, with the Russells.

The only one of my Uncles of whom I have any recollec-
tion was my Uncle Isaac. I remember him distinctly on one
occasion, when he was dining at the farm-house ; he took me
up in his arms and wanted me to kiss him; but I was shy
about it. "This young lady does not kiss gentlemen!"
said your grandfather laughing. I seem to hear him say
the words now, and I also recollect wondering in an infantile
way what was their meaning. This is my only recollection
of my Uncle Isaac. My Mother was much attached to
him; he was very warm-hearted and affectionate, and very
benevolent. On one occasion when your Grandfather was
in the Navy, he came home on a furlough, and my Uncle
Isaac gave a grand family dinner on the occasion. Your
Grandfather would seem to have been something of a dandy
in those days, he sported a queue, would you believe it!
Some of the young naval officers at that time followed the
fashion of Napoleon and Nelson, and sported that ap-

3Fame# Jfenimore Cooper 203

pendage. Judge of the excitement caused in the family,
and in the village by the midshipman's pigtail! He soon
threw it aside. But my Uncle Isaac by a successful
manoeuvre got possession of it on the day of the dinner
party, and when the family assembled about the table,
there, suspended to the chandelier was the young gentle-
man's pigtail! My Aunt Pomeroy told me the incident.
My Uncle Isaac died early in consequence of an accident.
He was paying a visit, with my Aunt Mary, to General
Morris' family at the Butternuts, and one day after dinner
was wrestling in fun with his brother-in-law Richard Morris,
when he was thrown with some force against the railing
of the piazza, injuring his spine. He lingered for a year
or more, but abcesses formed, and he died at last of
exhaustion.

My Mother always spoke kindly of her brothers-in-law.
My Uncle William was wonderfully clever, quite a genius, a
delightful talker, very witty. My Uncle Richard was a
handsome man with remarkably fine manners; my Grand-
father De Lancey, who had seen the best society in Eng-
land said he was "a very well bred man." He was very
intimate with Mr. Gouldsborough Banyer, and named his
eldest son after him. My Uncle Sam was clever, but under-
sized, and eccentric. My Mother has often said they were
all fine tempered men.

There was a romantic mystery hanging over the Lake at
that time — a mysterious bugle was heard in the summer
evenings, and moonlight nights — now from the Lake, now
from the wooded mountain opposite "Fenimore." " There
is the bugle!" my Father would call out, and all the family
would collect on the little piazza to listen. I remember
hearing the bugle frequently, and being aware, in a baby
fashion, of the excitement on the subject. No one knew
the performer. It was some mysterious stranger haunting

204 Hegente of a J^tottfjern Count?

the mountain opposite "Fenimore," for several months.
So my Aunt Pomeroy told me in later years.

My Father played the flute, in those days! His flute
remained among the family possessions for some years.

Family Lake parties were frequent in those days — they
always went to the Point, which your Great-Grandfather
had selected for that purpose only a few years after the
village was founded.

My Aunt Pomeroy has told me that the first Lake party
she remembered took place when she was quite a young
girl, the Lake was almost entirely surrounded with forest.
Game was still abundant, and on that occasion the gentle-
men of the party pursued and killed a deer in the Lake.
Bears and wolves were common then, and panthers also.
The bears would lie dormant in the caves on the hill sides,
and my Aunt said she had often heard the wolves howl on
the ice in the Lake, in winter. The first Lake Party was
given by my Grandfather to some friends from Philadelphia.
A beech-tree was chosen, on the Point, and the initials of
the party carved on it. I have seen the tree, and the ini-
tials of my Grandfather and Grandmother, W. C. and E. C.,
cut in the bark. But it has long since vanished.

About the same time that the first Lake party took place
there was a terrific fire in the forest, my Aunt said there
was a circle of flames entirely surrounding the Lake, and
apparently closing in about the village to the southward,
as the woods came very near the little town at that time.
There was serious alarm for a day or two. At night she
said the spectacle was very fine. But everybody was
anxious. Happily a heavy rain quenched the flames
before they reached the little village.

In winter there was a great deal of skating. My Uncle
Richard, and my Uncle William were particularly accom-
plished in that way, very graceful in their movements, and

Hfame* Jf emmore Cooper 205

cutting very intricate figures on the ice. So I have been
told.

We had not been long at Mamaroneck when a change in
the family plans took place. Instead of returning to
Cooper stown, after a six months visit, it was decided that
my father should build a country-house on a farm that was
destined for my Mother by my Grandfather. This farm
was on a hill in Scarsdale, four miles from Mamaroneck.
The question once decided my Father went to work with
his usual eagerness and in a few months the house was built,
and we took possession. The farm was called Angevine,
the name of the Huguenot tenants who had preceeded us.
The view from the hill was fine, including a long stretch of
the Sound, and Long Island beyond. The house consisted
of a centre, and two wings, one of these was the common
sitting room, the other was the "drawing-room." Little
did my dear Father foresee when he planned and built that
room, that within its walls he should write a book, and be-
come an author! In general his thoughts seem to have
turned upon ships, and the sea, and farming, and landscape
gardening. I can remember trotting around after him
while he was planning a sweep, and a ha-ha fence, — a
novelty in those days. He set out many trees.

During the winter after we had taken possession there
was a grand house-warming party. As I look back the
rooms seem to me to have been crowded with gaily dressed
ladies, and their cavaliers. I particularly remember my
Aunt Caroline, wearing a pink silk spencer, and dancing.
And this was the only occasion in which I ever saw my
Father dance.

My Father was much interested in Agricultural matters
in those days. He belonged to the Ag. Soc. of the County,
and I remember the making of a flag to be hoisted at the
annual fair; there was a black plough, and the words West

2o6 Hegente of a Jlortfjern Count?

Chester Agricultural Society in large, black letters on the
white ground, a joint effort of genius on the part of Father
and Mother, while two little girls looked on in admiration.
But our Father figured also as a military character at that
time; Governor Clinton made him his aide-de-camp, with
the rank of Colonel, and more than once we little girls had
the pleasure of admiring him in full uniform, blue and buff,
cocked hat and sword, mounted on Bull-head before pro-
ceeding to some review. He was thus transferred from the
naval to the land service. To the last days of his life, Mr.
James de Peyster Ogden, one of his New York friends
never omitted giving him his title of " Colonel." He thus
became one of the numerous army of American Colonels,
though not one of the ordinary type certainly.

He always read a great deal, in a desultory way. Mili-
tary works, travels, Biographies, History — and novels!
He frequently read aloud at that time to my Mother, in the
quiet evenings at Angevine. Of course the books were all
English. A new novel had been brought from England in
the last monthly packet; it was I think one of Mrs. Opie's or
one of that school. My Mother was not well, she was lying
on the sofa, and he was reading this newly imported novel
to her; it must have been very trashy; after a chapter or two
he threw it aside exclaiming, ' ' / could write you a better book
than that myself!" Our Mother laughed at the idea as the
height of absurdity — he who disliked writing even a letter,
that he should write a book! He persisted in his declara-
tion however, and almost immediately wrote the first pages
of a tale, not yet named, the scene laid in England, as a
matter of course.

He soon became interested, and amused with the under-
taking, drew a regular plot, talked over the details with our
Mother, and resolved to imitate the tone, and character of
an English tale of the ordinary type. After a few chapters

jf emmore Cooper 207

were written he would have thrown it aside, but our dear
Mother encouraged him, to persevere, why not finish it,
why not print it ? This last idea amused him greatly. He
usually wrote in the drawing-room, and after finishing a
chapter always brought my Mother in to hear it. One
day he left the room, the door was open and I went in, and
retired under the writing-table which was covered with a
cloth, for a play with my doll. Father and Mother came
in together. I went on playing quietly with my dolL The
reading of a chapter of Precaution began. This interested
me greatly; it was Chapter . Suddenly I burst into
tears, and sobbed aloud over the woes of .... Father
and Mother were amazed, I was withdrawn from my tent,
but they could not imagine what had distressed me. On
one of his visits to New York, in those days, my Father
bought a large green port-folio for himself, and a red one
for my Mother. The red one is now among my papers, in
a dilapidated condition.

When Precaution was completed we set out for a visit
to Bedford, for the especial purpose of reading the M.S. to
the Jay family. My mother wished the book to be printed,
my Father had some doubts on the subject, and at last it
was decided that if his friends the Jays listened with inter-
est to the reading, the printing should take place. Mrs.
Banyer's taste and judgment were considered of especial
importance in deciding a literary question. We made the
little journey in the gig; Father, Mother, Susie and Pre-
caution. For my part I greatly enjoyed the visit, playing
with Anna and Maria Jay. The reading went on in the
parlour, while we little people were in the nursery. Gov-
ernor Jay, venerable in appearance as in character was one
of the audience. With his grand children I used to go up
and kiss him for good-night, every evening. The audience
approved, although only one or two knew the secret of the

208 Itegente of a Jlorrtjern Count?

authorship; the M.S. was supposed to be written by a friend
of my Father. There was a Miss McDonald, a friend of
the Jays staying with them at the time, she declared the
book quite interesting, but it was not new, "I am sure I
have read it before," she declared — this the author con-
sidered as a complimentary remark, as he aimed at close
imitation of the Opie School of English novels. Bedford
was at that time a delightful house to visit at, child as I was
it made this impression on me. My Father and Judge Jay
were always very intimate, they had been school-boys to-
gether. Mrs. Banyer was also a warm friend of my parents.
Her husband Mr. Gouldsborough Banyer had been an
intimate friend of my Uncle Richard Cooper; Mrs. Ban-
yer's wedding trip was to Cooperstown, and she always
spoke with pleasure and interest of her visit to the old
Hall; the view of the Lake she declared to be lovely from
the house at that time.

When Precaution was published some months later, it
was generally supposed to have been written in England,
and by a lady. Many persons thought it was written by
Miss Anne De Lancey, my Mother's sister, who afterwards
married Mr. John Loudon McAdam, the great engineer of
roads. This sister my Mother had never seen ! When my
grand-parents returned to America after the Revolution,
their eldest child was left in England with her Uncle and
Aunt, Judge and Mrs. Jones; Judge Jones was the brother
of my grandmother, he took the name of Jones from
, he was born a Floyd. Mrs. Jones was my
grandfather's sister, Miss Anne De Lancey. They were
both great Tories, and could not be induced to return to
America, and begged that their little niece might be left
with them for a time at least. So the child was left with
them, and my grand-parents sailed with their little boy
Thomas, and his nurse, "Nanny" — our dear old Nanny of

Sterne* Jf emmore Cooper 209

later days. My Grandfather considered himself an Amer-
ican, not an Englishman, and now that the war was over
decided to cast in his lot with his native country. They
lived in New York for a time, at the City Hotel, which
belonged to my Grandfather. When we were living in the
Rue St. Dominique at Paris, one of our opposite neighbors
was the due de Valmy, Gen. Kellerman; he one day asked
my Father if he had ever known a Madame de Land, in
New York, remarking that he had spent some time at the
City Hotel, and there became acquainted with M. and Mme.
de Lance, the lady he said was one of the most beautiful
women he had ever seen. My Aunt Anne grew up a fierce
Tory, and after the death of her Uncle and Aunt Jones, could
never be induced to come to America, which was a great
grief to my grand-parents. She was now credited with
writing Precaution, a book it was said, clearly written in
England, and by a woman !

Precaution having been quite as successful as he expected
the writer now planned another book. It was to be
thoroughly American, the scene laid in West-Chester Co.
during the Revolution. An anecdote which Governor
Jay had told him relating to a spy, who performed his
dangerous services out of pure patriotism, was the founda-
tion of the new book.

My Father never knew the name of the Spy; Governor
Jay felt himself bound to secrecy on that point. But he
never for a moment believed that Enoch Crosby was the
man. Various individuals, twenty years later, claimed to
have been the original Harvey Birch. One man even asserts
that Mr. Cooper used to visit at his house frequently, for
the purpose of hearing his adventures and then writing
them out in the Spy. This is utterly false. From only
one person did my Father ever receive any information
connected with the life of the Spy who was the dim original

14

210 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

of Harvey Birch, and that person was Governor Jay. The
conversation on the piazza at Bedford relating to the patriot
spy occurred a long time before my Father dreamed of
writing a book.

When he had fully made up his mind to write a novel
entirely American, whose scene should be laid in West
Chester during the Revolution, he amused himself by going
among the old farmers of the neighborhood and hearing
all the gossip of those old times, about the "Neutral
Ground" on which we were then living, the ground between
the English in New York, and American forces northward.
Frequently he would invite some old farmer to pass the
evening in the parlour at Angevine, and while drinking cider
and eating hickory nuts, they would talk over the battle of
White Plains, and all the skirmishes of the Cow-Boys and
Skinners. Many such evenings do I remember, as I sat on
a little bench beside my Mother, while Uncle John Hatfield,
or George Willis, or one of the Cornells related the stir-
ring adventures of those days of the Revolution. There
was a shallow cave in the rocky ledge on the road to Mama-
roneck where a Tory spy had been concealed, and was
stealthily fed for some time. And on the road to New
Rochelle there was a grove where a sharp skirmish had
taken place, it was called the Haunted Wood — Ghosts had
been seen there ! The cave and the grove were full of tragic
interest to me, whenever we passed them.

Every chapter of the Spy was read to my Mother as soon
as it was written, and the details of the plot were talked
over with her. From the first months of authorship, to the
last year of his life, my Father generally read what he wrote
to my Mother.

The Spy when it appeared was brilliantly successful.
Never before had an American book attained anything
like the same success.

3F ameg Jf emmore Cooper 2 1 1

During those years at Angevine our education began.
Our dear Mother was our Governess, and from time to
time our Father examined us. We were "in school" two
hours, the three elder ones, Susie, Cally and Charley, sitting
round our Mother in the parlour, or dining-room, while the
author and the Spy were occupying the drawing-room.
Charley could read when she was three years old. There
was spelling, and writing, and arithmetic, and geography,
and Mrs. Trimener's Bible Lessons, and the History of
England. Well do I remember those school hours. Our
precious Mother was so loving and patient with us. I seem
to hear her sweet musical voice now as she talked with us.
She had a remarkably sweet voice in conversation; my
friend Mrs. Hamilton Fish said to me one day years ago,
"I always thought that when novelists spoke of the musical
voices of their heroines in conversation it was pure romance,
but Mrs. Cooper's voice is melody itself."

Meanwhile writing was going on. The printing would
seem to have been a slower business than it is to-day. The
new book was to give a picture of American life in a new
settlement, shortly after the Revolution, and the scene was laid
at Cooperstown, on Lake Otsego. Some of the characters
were drawn from real life, but the plot was purely fiction.
Monsieur Le Quoi, Major Hartman, Ben Pump were actual
colonists on Lake Otsego. Natty Bumppo was entirely
original, with the exception of his leathern stockings, which
were worn by a very prosaic old hunter, of the name of
Shipman, who brought game to the Hall. Mr. Grant was
not Father Nash.

The house your Grandfather had rented was one of two
recently built by the Patroon, on Broadway, just above
Prince Street. It was then almost ' ' out of town. ' ' Directly
opposite to us was a modest two story house occupied by
John Jacob Astor. Niblo's Gardens now occupys the site

212 Hesente of a Jlortfjern County

of the house in which we lived. Not far above us was the
very grand " Gothic edifice" St. Thomas Church, considered
an architectural gem in those days I Next door to us was a
Boarding School, one of the best in New York, the principal
was Mrs. Isabella Holt. Here Cally and I became pupils.
There were some very nice girls in the school, Miss Eliza-
beth Fish, Miss Rutgers, Miss Morewood, all older than we
were, and the Langdons, grand-daughters of Mr. Astor
who were about our age. Here we sat with our feet in the
stocks — here I became very intimate with the Kings of
Egypt, and the great men of Greece. Here if we were dis-
orderly, or our nails were not properly cleaned we were
obliged to wear a real pig's-foot tied around our neck ! One
tragic morning Miss Morewood, the oldest girl, eighteen,
and a perfect pupil, left her work lying about, and was
condemned to wear the pig's foot ! Mrs. Holt shed a tear,
Miss Morewood wept, and I fancy we all cried — but stern
justice was administered — the pig's foot was worn by the
model pupil ! These young ladies often were escorted from

school by their beaux. Miss Rutgers, now Mrs. , and a

grandmother has been in Cooperstown lately. On one
occasion I was told to write a composition on the difference
between the characters of Washington and Franklin —
your Grandfather no sooner learned the subject allotted to
me, than he took his hat, walked in to Mrs. Holt's and
remonstrated on the folly of giving such a task to a child of
nine. That composition was never written.

In those days your Grandfather saw frequently many
officers of the army, and navy. I remember on one occa-
sion his bringing General Scott home to dinner, and my
amazement at his great height — as he stood at the window
he looked out of the upper sash. Your Grandfather was
also partial to the society of artists, all painters, there was
no American sculptor in those days. Mr. Dunlap, and

Jf emmore Cooper 2 1 3

Mr. Cole, I remember especially. I remember being taken
to see a picture of great size, Death on the White Horse,
painted by Mr. Dunlap. It was about this time that my
Father planned and founded a Club to which he gave the
name of the "Lunch." It met every Thursday evening, I
think at the house of Abigail Jones, a coloured cook famous
at that day, who kept the Delmonico's of that date. Most
of the prominent men of ability and character in New York
belonged to the club, which also through its members, in-
vited strangers of distinction. Conversation was the ob-
ject, I do not think there was any card-playing. The
evening closed with a good supper, one of the members
being caterer every Thursday, while Abigail Jones carried
out the programme to perfection in the way of cook-
ing. Your Grandfather, when caterer, wore a gilt key at
his buttonhole. He was very social in his tastes and
habits, and full of spirited conversation, and delighted in
these lunch meetings. Officers of the Army and Navy, the
prominent Clergy, Lawyers, Physicians, Merchants, &c.,
&c., belonged to the Club. Bishop Hobart was a frequent
guest.

In the following spring we moved to Beach Street, near
Greenwich Street, to a house belonging to our Mother's
cousin Henry Floyd Jones of Fort Neck. He and my
Father were very intimate. Several years before her mar-
riage your Grandmother came near losing her life from this
cousin's carelessness. He was staying at Heathcote Hill and
taking up a gun — there were always several in the gun-rack
in the hall — he aimed it at his cousin Susan, threatening to
shoot her. The gun was loaded — he had believed it unloaded
— the full charge of shot went into the wall, very near my
Mother's head, as she stood within a few feet of her cousin.
Cousin Henry was almost distracted at the thought of the
risk she had run. It was a rule of my Grandfather's that

214 Eegettb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

every gun carried by the sportsmen, should be discharged
before it was brought into the house. But on that occasion
the rule had been carelessly broken.

One day, as I was sitting near my Mother your Grand-
father came into the room, with the Cooperstown paper
in his hand, and without speaking pointed out a passage to
her, and then left the room. My dear Mother looked sad.
It was the burning of the house at Fenimore which was re-
ported in the Freeman's Journal. The stone house was
very nearly finished, and was valued at $3500. There were
many incendiary fires in Cooperstown at that time, all
contrived it was said by one unprincipled man. Your
Grandfather soon after sold the property at Fenimore.

One day, at a dinner-party at Mr. Wilkes' the recently
published novel "by the author of Waverly," the Pirate,
was the subject of conversation. Several of the party in-
sisted that the book could not have been written by a lands-
man. Your Grandfather thought differently, and declared
that a sailor would have been more accurate, and made
more of the nautical portions of the book. No one agreed
with him ; they thought that great skill had been shown by
merely touching on the sea passages, to have enlarged them
would have ruined the book : "Impossible to interest the
reader deeply in a novel where the sea was introduced too
freely." Your Grandfather declared that a novel where the
principal events should pass on the Ocean, with ships and
sailors for the machinery might be made very interesting.
There was a general outcry. Mr. Wilkes himself a man of
literary tastes, and very partial to your Grandfather, shook
his head decidedly. Nevertheless at that very moment
the author of the Spy resolved to write a clearly nautical
novel. On his way home he sketched the outline, and ar-
rived at his house told your Grandmother of his plan. He
always talked over his literary plans with her. The Pilot

STame* Jfenfatore Cooper 215

was soon commenced, and when published proved bril-
liantly successful.

Our cousin Gouldsborough Cooper, my Uncle Richard's
eldest son, paid us a visit during the winter. Officers of the
Army and Navy, Artists, and literary men, were frequently
at the house. I particularly remember Mr. Bryant, Mr.
Halleck, and Mr. Perceval the poet, as guests at dinner.
Also Mr. Cole the artist. Dr. DeKay was also a frequent
companion of your Grandfather's. Mr. Gilbert Saltonstall
a college companion of your Grandfather's, whose home
was in New England staid at the house repeatedly; he
was a very clever man. On one occasion when Lieutenant
Commander Shubrick was going away after passing a
week or two with us, he proposed to my little sister
Fanny to go with him; she was all ready for the
elopement, trotted upstairs, put together a few articles of
her wardrobe, tied them up in a handkerchief, and trotted
down to the parlour all ready for the journey; Captain
Shubrick was delighted with her readiness to go with him
and frequently alluded to it in later years.

With the spring came another movement to the country.
This time to Hallett's Cove, to a farm house belonging to
Col Gibbs, a friend of my Father, whose fine house and
grounds were close at hand. The place was called Sunswick
and was opposite Blackwell's Island. It was thoroughly
country then, with only an occasional farm house in the
neighborhood. We had a beautiful little cow, "Betty,"
and a farm waggon, with black horses, in which my Father
drove us about. He frequently took us to a pleasant sandy
beach, where we children picked up many pretty shells, and
where we all bathed. There was a wooded point at one
end of the beach where we loitered in shade, enjoying the
breeze. A few years later Dr. Muhlenberg built his College
on that point. Sunswick is now the city of Astoria !

2i6 Hegettbg of a Jlortfjern Count?

Our Father had a little sloop of his own, anchored at the
wharf, near the house ; he called it the Van Tromp, and went
to New York in it almost daily. Frequently I went with
him, resting until the turn of the tide, at Mr. Wiley's book-
store. Was this in Wall St.? I remember distinctly the
abominable taste of the water, brought to me when I was
thirsty, from a pump in the street. For many years longer
New Yorkers drank only very unpleasant water from the
street pumps.

In the autumn a grand event occurred. The completing
of the Erie Canal. There was a great procession in New
York, which we saw from the windows of 345 Greenwich
St. Every trade was represented in the line, with appro-
priate banners, and devices. One carriage in passing our
house made an especial demonstration; it contained gentle-
men, several of whom had on the ends of their uplifted canes
slices of bread and cheese, members of Father's Club, the
Lunch, no doubt.

Our Father after winding up his business in New York,
went to Washington, in company with the Prince of Canino,
Charles Bonaparte, the celebrated naturalist with whom he
was quite intimate. While he was in Washington Mr. Clay
offered him the position of Minister to Sweden, but he did
not wish to be tied to a diplomatic life. He preferred a
Consulship, as he wished to remain identified with the coun-
try, and thought that position would be a protection to his
family in case of troubles in Europe. The chief object in
his going to Washington was to see more of a large deputa-
tion of Indian chiefs, from the Western tribes, of whom he
had seen much while they were in New York. He had be-
come much interested in them, and studied them closely.
They were chiefly Pawnees and Sioux, and among them was
Petelasharoo, a very fine specimen of a warrior, a remark-
able man in every way. The army officers in charge of this

Jfenimore Cooper 217

deputation told him many interesting facts connected with
those tribes. He had already decided upon a new romance,
connected with the mounted tribes on the Prairies.

The ist of June, 1826, the author of the Spy embarked in
the good ship Hudson, with all his family, including his
nephew William, the son of his brother William, whom he
had adopted. We were five weeks at sea, landing at Cowes,
in the Isle of Wight, on the 4th of July.

One day as we went home, our dear Mother said, "Who
do you suppose has been here this morning? Sir Walter
Scott ! " Sir Walter had just arrived in Paris, seeking ma-
terials for his Life of Napoleon. It w as very kind in him to
call on your Grandfather so soon. They had some interest-
ing interviews.

The same morning General Lafayette made a long call on
my Father. But that was a common occurrence.

While Sir Walter Scott was in Paris the Princess Galitzin
gave him a very grand reception. It was a great event of
the winter, all the fashionable people of Paris were there.
Sir Walter says in his diary, "the Scotch and American
lions, took the field together." But of course Sir Walter
was the lion in chief. All the ladies wore Scotch plaids as
dresses, scarfs, ribbons, &c., &c.

The Princess Galitzin was an elderly lady, very clever, a
very kind friend of your Grandfather and Grandmother and
a great writer of notes, full of the eloquence du billet, but in
the most crabbed of handwriting. She had a married
daughter, and a married son living in Paris at that time.
Her daughter-in-law, the Princess Marie was a charming
young lady, sweet and gentle though the daughter of that
rough old hero Marshall Suwarrow who when needing rest,
took off his spurs on going to bed. Madame de Zerze", the
Princess' daughter, gave a brilliant child's party, to which
we four little sisters were invited. Your father, my dear

218 Hegenb* of a jBtortfjern Count?

Jim, had not yet put on his dancing shoes. Another child's
party, a very brilliant affair, I remember, given by Madame
de Vivien for her grand-daughters Mesdemoiselles de
Lostange. The whole Hotel was open, and brilliantly
lighted, and a company of cuirassiers in full uniform were
on guard in the court, and adjoining street, to keep order
among the coachmen and footmen. That was the most
brilliant affair of the kind that I ever attended in my
childish days.

A naval officer, formerly his commander when he was
stationed on Lake Ontario, Captain Woolsey was a frequent
companion of my Father during the first winter at Paris.
They one day undertook to walk around the outer walls
of Paris, and accomplished the feat successfully. The
distance was, I think, eighteen miles.

John Bull was very civil to your Grandfather, so far as
London Society went. He dined with prominent M. P.s,
prominent Peers, and even with Cabinet Ministers. He
soon became quite intimate with Mr. Rogers the Poet, they
were much together, and enjoyed each other's society. Mr.
Rogers was very clever, and witty, and had a charming
bijou of a house, full of curiosities ; in his dining room was a
mahogany side board made for him by a journey man cab-
inet maker, later the celebrated sculptor Chantrey!

In the month of July 1828, just two years after we en-
tered Paris, we took leave of our dear Governesses, and school
friends in the Rue St. Maur, and set out in a roomy family
carriage, coachman's box in front, rumble behind, with our
faces towards Switzerland and Italy. We travelled post, —
much the pleasantest of all modes of travelling. No doubt
the palace cars of the present day are very grand and
luxurious; but grandeur and luxury often leave much real
pleasantness out of sight. The postillions were very comi-
cal in appearance, wearing huge clumsy boots, that covered

jfentmore Cooper 219

their entire legs, and were stuffed with straw ! Occasionally
we were treated to ropes in the harness. My father often
sat on the coachman's box, and I well remember his delight
at the first sight of Mt. Blanc, like a brilliant white cloud,
sixty miles away! He stopped the carriage, and invited
my dear mother to take a seat beside him. He was also in
a state of toosey moosey over the mists which clung to the
Jura mountains, after we had once entered Switzerland.
We were soon settled in a pleasant country house near
Berne, la Lorraine, which had been recently occupied by the
ex-king of Holland, Louis Buonaparte, after the crown had
fallen from his head, — as all Napoleon's crowns were
doomed to fall. It was a very simple house, with deal
floors, a stiff little garden in front, with a stiff little foun-
tain, quite waterless, as its sole ornament. But Oh the
sublime view of the Alps from the windows — the whole
range of the Oberland Alps, so grand beyond description,
so beautiful beyond description, and constantly varying
in their grandeur, and their beauty. In the rear of the
house was a natural terrace where all walked almost every
evening, parents and children, enjoying the noble view. It
was on that terrace that my father taught Paul to fly his
first kite, which he had made for him. Farmer Walther
who had charge of the property had many interesting talks
with his tenant on subjects political, and military; he was
very indignant at the robbery of the Treasury of the Can-
ton of Berne by one of Napoleon's Marshals. But then
Napoleon while grand in other ways, was grand also at
Robbery. Of course we made acquaintance with the Bears
of Berne in their fosse. I doubt if many travellers enjoyed
Switzerland more then your Grandfather did, he was in a
perpetual state of toosey moosey, over the grand, and the
beautiful in that Alpine region. He made many excursions
among the mountains, alone with guide and Alpenstock,

220 Hegente of a JBtortfcern Count?

with William, or occasionally in a carriage with my dear
mother, William and myself. There were very few Amer-
icans travelling in Switzerland in those years. Only two
came to Berne during the summer we passed there, Mr.
Ray, and Mr. Low, of New York.

In October we took a sentimental leave of la Lorraine,
and moved southward to Florence. We travelled Vet-
turino in the family cale'che, with four fine horses, and a
fine old cuirassier of Napoleon's wars for postillion, followed
by a fourgon which carried our baggage, and had a hooded
seat in front, occupied by William and Paul's nurse. The
fourgon had only two horses, and a subaltern, Caspar, for a
postillion. We crossed the Simplon before the snow fell.
Your Grandfather was much interested in the great en-
gineering work of Napoleon, which crossed the Simplon
with such a fine broad road.

We were soon in Italy, dear delightful Italy. We paid
our homage to the beautiful Cathedral at Milan, paid our
respects to San Carlo Borromeo, and the Lago Maggiore,
halted for a day or two at Bologna, crossed the Appenines,
and were soon at the gates of Florence. Your Grandfather
fell in love with Italy at first sight. And it was a love which
lasted through his lifetime. For Switzerland he had a
great admiration ; for Italy he had a warm affection, which
neither beggars, nor bandits could chill. The very atmos-
phere of Italy was a delight to him.

We were soon provided with a home of our own in
Florence.

I am adding to these recollections the following
verses, to preserve them and what is known of their
history. Years ago I found the unsigned and undated

3fameg Jfemmore Cooper 221

manuscript among my grandfather's papers; it was in
his handwriting but bore nothing to identify the writer,
or the name of the friend to whom it is addressed. We
concluded that it was written by him and thought
that possibly it was on the death of his Secretary
William Cooper, who died in Paris.

In the summer of 1920 my sisters, who for many
years have spent several months at Murray Bay,
Canada, were told that, written on a piece of paper in
a book in the library of the Manor house, was a copy
of these verses, dated and signed as below, but with
nothing to indicate the name of the person to whom
they are addressed.

Fenimore Cooper visited Leghorn at about the time
of the date. The only suggestion that I can make as to
the "messmate" is that it may have been Captain
Woolsey who is mentioned in the foregoing notes as
having been in Paris in 1826 or 1827.

LEGHORN— STH. M ARCH— 1 829

Sleep on in peace within thy foreign grave,
Companion of my young and laughing hour —
Thought bears me hence to wild Ontario's wave —
To other scenes, to time when hope had power.

Then life to us was like yon glittering main
Viewed in the calm, beneath its sunny skies,
Then impulse bound the mind in pleasure's chain,
And colors rose in gold before the eyes.

222 Hegenbg of a Jfrorttjeni Count?

We based our rocks of fame on moving seas,
To us their trackless paths were beaten ways —
The spirit stirring gale, the milder breeze,
The battle's carnage teemed with laurel'd praize —

But twice ten wiser years have drawn a ray

Of austere truth athwart this treacherous sphere,

To me life stands exposed, yet I obey

Its luring smile — Thou — sleepest ever here —

J. Fenimore Cooper

visited the grave of his old messmate.
Decber 6th 1828

Copied Leghorn
March 5th. 1829.

OTSEGO HALL

THE following description of Otsego Hall and its
predecessor, called the Manor House, was begun by
J. Fenimore Cooper in a blank book, with the intention
of writing a complete history of the Hall. This idea
he abandoned and the leaves on which the following
was written were cut out. I found them among other
old papers and print them with all the blanks unfilled.

CONSTRUCTION &c.

At the original settlement of Cooper stown, The pro-
prietor William Cooper, laid out a plot of ground for his own
residence in the centre of the village. This plot faced on
Fair Street, and extended half way from Second to Third
Street. It was enclosed with a picket fence, and contained
about an acre and a half of land. In 1788, Judge Cooper
erected a wooden building, nearly on a line with Second
Street, and directly in front of Fair Street or nearly on the
line of the present (1840) wall. This house was of two
stories, and had a wing at each end. A few years later, an
addition was annexed to the rear. A good representation
of it is to be seen in the original map, where the house is
called Manor House. It was a roughly built house, but
good for the country, and the times. This house was
temporarily inhabited by Judge Cooper, in 1789, but his

223

224 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

family did not remove to it, until Oct. 1790. In this house,
in 179 was born Henry Frey Cooper the youngest child
of William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore, who died at
Burlington, New Jersey, when only nine months old. At
this time, The garden was near the house, a little to the
east of it, The asparagus bed, being near the present
Bank. The barns and stables were on the north side of
Second Street, in the rear of the stone store built by N.
Worthington.

Lombardy poplars were introduced into the country by
Judge Cooper, about the year 1796 who caused several
rows of them to be set out in his grounds, to form avenues
to the new building. A few of the apple trees were found
in the lot, having been planted by the Indians or by Col.
Croghan, The old deputy superintendent of Indian affairs,
but most of them were set out and grafted about the year
1 795 . An Englishman of the name of Zeb did

the grafting.

M. de Tallyrand visited Cooperstown, in the year 1795,
and passed several days with Judge Cooper, in the old
house.

In 1796 Judge Cooper made his contracts for the con-
struction of the Hall. The stone for the foundation was
obtained from the fields, on the farm of Luce,

no quarries having then been opened in the mountains.
The bricks were made at the outlet, the clay having been
brought from The Housman Lot, on the west side of the
Lake. The lime was also made at the outlet. When the
Hall was commenced, Judge Cooper extended the grounds
Through to Third Street, and he opened a lane from West
Street, to communicate with new barns &c. That he had
built on a lot that communicated with the grounds, west
and north of the house. The foundation of the Hall was
laid in the summer of 1797, and the walls of the house were

225

run up, and the building enclosed in that of 1798. The
roof was raised, 1798. The interior was finished

in the course of the following spring. The family moved
into the house in June 1799.

According to the original distribution, the great hall was
used as a room, and was furnished in a very general way.
A piano stood between the window and door on the north-
east corner, a side board between the two next doors, on
the same side, a dining table between the two next, and a
tea-table, between the last door and the window. In the
southwest corner stood an old fashioned clock, and near it,
another sewing table. A long settee covered with chintz
stood between the two doors on that side, and a large hand
organ between the most northern of the doors and the
window. There were two small chandeliers in the hall, and
it was warmed by a large tin plate stove that stood in the
centre. There were also gilt branches on the door casings,
and busts in the pediments. The window seats were
generally rilled with books.

The northwest room was intended for a dining room, and
there is now a trap door in it, that was made for passing up
dishes from below, but the hall proving to be so great a
favorite, this room, as commanding a view of the lake, was
used as a drawing room. It was very seldom opened, how-
ever, never, indeed, unless at some family festival. This
room is very little altered from what it was in 1798, The
paper alone having been renewed and a new ceiling made.
The original paper was a delicate vine, with a straw colored
back ground.

The southwest room was called the dining room, but it may
be questioned if a table was ever set in it, during the lives of
Judge Cooper and his wife. The paper was figured, with a
red background, and exceedingly ugly. In other respects,
this room is much as it used to be. Though it was not oaked.
is

226 HegenbsJ of a Jlortfjern Count?

The northeast room was used by Mrs. William Cooper,
as a bed-room; the bed standing in the south-west corner.
The paint was blue, and the paper sombre. In that day,
it was the custom to paint The wood- work different colours.

The stairs were straight, steep, and mean. They were
very difficult of ascent and even dangerous; the carpenters
appearing to have no idea of a landing. The paper of
the little passage was like that of the hall.

The house was divided into six large rooms on the second
floor. The garret stairs were directly over those below,
and there were two windows in the east end of the building
one to light the little passage, and the other to light the
corridors, up stairs, which reached to the doors of the two
western chambers. As these two chambers were much the
largest in the house, They were kept for company. That
in the centre, on the north side, was the young men's room,
and occupied by the two oldest sons, when at home; that
opposite was a storeroom, with a bed for any familiar ac-
quaintance. Each of these rooms had three windows.
The northeast room was occupied by the two daughters,
Hannah and Ann, and the room opposite by the boys,
William and James.

As soon as the old house was vacant, it was removed
down the street, far enough to permit a view of the Lake,
and was subsequently converted into stores. In the end, it
was consumed by fire.

The southeast door in the great hall communicated with
the pantry, which was large, and contained The second
window on that side of the building. A door opened from
t he little passage, into a room behind the pantry. That was
called the library. This room had two windows; one on
the east, and one on the south, and the book cases stood in a
recess, between the end of the pantry and the partition
beyond.

©teego J^all 227

The kitchen garden was made, about the year 1800, at
the south-east corner of the lot, and a small vine yard was
made in the hollow next to the street. Fences ran from the
two southern corners of the house to Third Street, and the
enclosure was converted into a flower garden. The re-
mainder of the grounds were either in fruit, or laid out in
squares divided by straight, formal gravel walks.

The house was originally painted red and lined, so as to
show the bricks. The roof was painted red, and had a light
wooden railing. About the year 1800, a low stone addition,
of the height of the foundation, was run out towards the
east, to the offices &c. and as a laundry. In the year 1803,
another of the same height and material was put on the
west end, and was used as an office.

The summer of 1799, the following winter, and the sum-
mer of 1800 were all exceedingly gay, with the exception
that Judge Cooper was absent, in Philadelphia, where
Congress then sat.

It ought to have been said that in front of the house was
a stone stoop, with a slight pediment supported by four
slender columns, and in the rear a low wooden one with
seats.

On the morning of the loth September, Richard Feni-
more Cooper, the eldest son of Judge Cooper accompanied
by his eldest sister, Hannah, left the Hall, on horseback to
cross the hills on a visit to the Morrises at the Butternuts.
Miss Cooper was mounted on a spirited imported English
blooded mare, and when about a mile from the end of her
journey, the mare suddenly jumped aside at a dog, threw
its rider, and killed Miss Cooper, on the spot. This young
lady was just two and twenty, and was esteemed and loved
by all who knew her. Few young women of her age, ever
died more lamented. Her body was conveyed to the resi-
dence of General Morris, and that night Mr. Richard

228 Hegenb* of a Jlortfiem Count?

Morris brought the sad intelligence to the Hall. On the
night of the nth the body arrived, and was placed in its
coffin, on the Fenimore Table as it is called, in the dining-
room (now the library, 1840) near the wall, and on the right
hand, on entering the room. On the I2th the body was
removed into the Hall, and placed between the two southern
doors on the east side, leaving room for a row of chairs next
the wall. The Rev. Mr. Nash preached a sermon, standing
near the pantry door, and the hall was filled with people.
Judge Cooper, Richard Fenimore, Samuel, and James Feni-
more, were all the members of the family present, Isaac
being in Philadelphia, and William at Princeton College.
Mrs. Cooper and her daughter Ann, were in the room of
the former. The procession left the house by the front
door, and the body was interred in the present family bury-
ing ground. A slab was placed over The grave, made of
the common stone of the country (quarries had then been
opened) and The inscription on it was written, by Judge
Cooper. This slab does not contain The name of the de-
ceased, or any date whatever. The death of Miss H.
Cooper was The first that had occurred in the family at
Cooperstown. Judge Cooper, however, had lost several
children previously to removing to Cooperstown, Their
names were Amos, Abraham, Elizabeth, two that were
never named, and Henry Frey. Henry Frey was the only
child of Judge Cooper's who was born in Cooperstown, and
he died and was buried at Burlington, New Jersey. Until
the death of Miss Cooper, a sort of superstition prevailed
in the family, That all were to die and be buried at
Burlington.

On the of , Richard Fenimore Cooper was

married to Ann Low Carey. Richard Fenimore was the
eldest child of William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore and
Ann Low was the second daughter of Richard Carey of

Otscgo Sail 229

Springfield, Otsego County and Ann Low, his wife, of New
York, The bride and bridegroom reached the Hall, on the
day of the wedding, and they took possession of the south-
western room. Judge Cooper, at this time, was absent in
Washington, where Congress then sat. The winter of
1880-1 was less gay, at the Hall, Than the preceding, on
account of the death of Miss Cooper, but several young
ladies passed a portion of it there. Among them were Miss
Mary Ann Morris and Miss Eliza Carey.

This year, and the two or three that succeeded, The
vineyard produced very good grapes but cold winters killed
the vines about the year 1804. The plums of the garden
were very celebrated from 1796 to 1808 &c. &c.

In the course of The year 1801, Richard Fenimore Cooper
took possession of his own home at Apple Hill, being the
first of the family who quitted The paternal residence. At
this time, Isaac Cooper was in Philadelphia, in the counting-
house of & Bancker, William at Princeton College;
James at school with Rev. Tho. Ellison, rector of St.
Peter's Albany; Samuel and Ann at home. The latter, how-
ever, passed he winter of 1801-2 in Philadelphia.

Isaac Cooper was married to Mary Ann Morris 25th
Dec. 1804, and, on reaching the Hall, a few days after The
marriage, They occupied The . In 1805, They

removed to The house at the west corner of Second and
fair streets, since destroyed by fire. On the occasion of
this wedding, The drawing room was opened, for company,
for the second time, The death of Miss Cooper having
prevented This from occurring except on great occasions.

Miss Ann Cooper, The only surviving daughter of Judge
Cooper, was married on the of May 1803 to George

Pomeroy, and continued to reside in the Hall, until the close
of the following year, when they removed to their own
house, corner of Second and Water Street. This marriage

230 Hegente of a J^ortfjetm Count?

took place in The hall, near the spot where the dining table
is usually set, The Rev. Isaac Lewis officiating. This is
the first marriage That ever occurred in the house. The
young couple occupied The room now called New Jersey.
In this room, on the of eve was born

William Cooper Pomeroy, the first child ever born in the
building. He died at his father's house , 1807.

After the removal of Isaac Cooper to the house in Second
Street, the family in the Hall usually consisted of only
Judge Cooper, his wife, and their fourth son Samuel; Wil-
liam residing in New York and James being either at
college, or at sea. At this time, The domestics, indoors
were reduced to The Governor, as he was called, a hired
black man; Sarah the cook; and Betty, the chambermaid.

1808 William Cooper was married to Eliza Clason, at
the county house of the lady's father, on the East River,
and in the course of the season They paid their first visit to
Cooperstown. They also occupied New Jersey, which had
now got to be used as a room for married members of the
family.

December 1809, Judge Cooper died, at Lewis' tavern,
Albany. His body was brought to the Hall and was placed
in The . The funeral took place on The

This was the second funeral that took place from the house,
neither individual having died in it.

Judge Cooper, in his will, left the Hall to his widow for
her life, and, after her death, to each of his five sons in
succession, or to that one who should choose to accept it,
commencing with the eldest, at the sum of $15,000. At
this time the grounds were not much more than half as
large as they are now (1840) for, though The adjoining lots
belonged to the estate of Judge Cooper, They were not
supposed to be included in the devise. As the valuation
was supposed to be high, neither of the sons seemed disposed

©teego 3£all 231

to accept of the property, when by a rigid construction of
the will it must have descended to James, The younger.

From the time of Judge Cooper's death, The house was
occupied only by Mrs. Cooper and her son Samuel, until
the latter married, on the of 181 , Eliza

Bartlett, of Cooperstown. Mr. Samuel Cooper and his
wife occupied the Library, which was converted into a bed
room for their convenience. The office was now deserted,
all the papers of the family, having been removed to an
office constructed by Mr. Isaac Cooper, for that purpose.

Some of the furniture mentioned is now at Fynmere.
The sideboard, the "hand organ," and the Fenimore
Table are all in the dining-room. Many of the books
which belonged to William Cooper and his family and
some of the silverware are also at Fynmere.

Some years ago there was a curious story about
Otsego Hall started by one of the Smiths of Phila-
delphia, one of whose number, R. R. Smith, was a
friend of Judge Cooper's, lived at Cooperstown for a
time, and kept the settlement shop. The Smiths owned
some of the Otego Patent about twenty miles west of
Cooperstown on the Otego Creek. There, about 1774,
one of them built a small frame building and dubbed it
"Smith's Hall." It is still standing about half a mile
north of Laurens to the east of the main road on the
west sid'e of the Otego Creek. It is known locally as
"Smith's Hall."

Every family has its historian — more or less inac-

232 Hegente of a Jlortfjern Count?

curate. When the Smith family history was written,
the author looked about for " Smith's Hall" — evidently
confusing Otego and Otsego, and pleased by the appear-
ance of Otsego Hall, he claimed it and published one of
the well-known prints of it in his history — where it still ap-
pears, with the explanation that it was built by one of
the Smiths and known as Smith's Hall until Judge
Cooper bought and remodelled it, and changed the
name to "Otsego Hall." Such is history! No Smith
of that family owned any land in the Cooper Patent,
and Judge Cooper, of course, built the Hall for himself
on his own land.

When Otsego Hall became the property of James
Fenimore Cooper, he altered it very materially. The
entrance hall was just about twenty-five by fifty feet,
and the building itself about seventy-five feet wide by
fifty odd deep. The model in the museum at Coopers-
town while fairly accurate is in many details wrong.

A GUIDE IN THE WILDERNESS

I AM including in this volume of sketches an intro-
duction written by me in 1897 for a second edition of a
volume of letters by Judge Cooper, published in 1807,
under the title of A Guide in the Wilderness, and long
since out of print. I am doing this, although it in-
volves a certain amount of repetition, as the introduc-
tion contains many facts and anecdotes not appearing
in the other articles in this book.

INTRODUCTION

WILLIAM COOPER, the writer of the letters composing
the Guide in the Wilderness, was born December 2d,
1754, in Byberry Township, then in Philadelphia
County, Pennsylvania. He married December 12,
1775, at Burlington, New Jersey, Elizabeth Fenimore,
daughter of Richard Fenimore, a descendant of early
English settlers in New Jersey. He became interested
in large tracts of land in New York and elsewhere
shortly after the Revolution, and from that time, until
his death in 1809, his principal occupation seems to have

233

234 Hejjente of a Jlortfjern Count?

been settling his own lands and those in which he had a
joint interest with others.

The time was one of great activity in land settlement
and speculation. Few, if any, new settlements had
been undertaken during the war and this period of
stagnation was naturally followed by large speculative
purchases of wild lands by men with money to invest.
The rapidity with which land could be disposed of to
persons seeking homes is shown by the settlement of
the tract of which the village of Cooperstown forms a
part. Judge Cooper after examining this land in 1785
offered forty thousand acres for sale to settlers, and he
states, that in sixteen days it was all taken up by the
poorer class of people, who bought principally small
holdings. Here, at the foot of Otsego Lake, in 1787, he
laid out a village which was given the name of Coopers-
Town. He gradually acquired other large tracts of
land in the neighborhood, and had, practically, the
management of the settlement of the greater part of
what is now Otsego County, either as owner or by agree-
ment with the owners, as well as of lands in other parts
of the State which he owned or controlled.

Speculation in American lands was not confined to
residents of this country. Large tracts were bought
by foreigners. The voluminous correspondence which
Judge Cooper has left shows that Necker, and after-
wards Madame de Stael, were owners of lands in our

a (Puttie in tfjc Jililtimicss; 235

northern counties. Under the stimulus of this specu-
lation land in some localities brought prices which it is
doubtful if it has realized since. Judge Cooper paid
ten dollars an acre for land in what is now known as
the North Woods, which is hardly worth a quarter of
that price to-day. Generally, however, his judgment
was remarkably good. This is shown by his designa-
tion in one of the following letters of the locations which
were likely, in his opinion, to become the sites of im-
portant towns ; among them he mentions the mouth of
the Buffalo creek — now Buffalo; the straits of Niagara
below the falls — now Lewiston, and the first falls of the
Genesee — now Rochester.

When the Guide in the Wilderness was written, the
only means of transportation were waterways and
roads ; and the value of lands, present and future, rested
largely on their location with reference to rivers and
lakes, to roads or the probable line of great highways.
Already a canal was under discussion and the sugges-
tions on this subject of Judge Cooper are interesting in
view of the subsequent building of the Erie Canal.
One element in the speculative value of land, which in-
vestors apparently overlooked, was the effect which the
clearing of the forests would have on the streams.
Large tracts of land, then deemed valuable because
they were located on the banks of some stream, navi-
gable for scows and small boats, soon lost the advan-

236 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

tage of such a location by the shrinking of the streams,
due to the cutting away of the woods.

Great profits were anticipated from the manufac-
ture of maple sugar, and among Cooper's papers is a
copy of a letter to the President of the United States
(George Washington) which accompanied a present
of "sugar and spirits produced from the maple tree"
sent by Arthur Noble (after whom the patents of
Arthurboro and Nobleboro are named) and Judge
Cooper.

The views of the author of the Guide on the wisdom
of selling in fee, instead of leasing in fee, have been
proved sound, by the collapse of the attempt to create
in this State a system of land proprietorship based on
perpetual leases binding the tenants to the payment of
perpetual rent. This course was followed on many of
the great estates in New York and resulted in endless
litigation and the "anti-rent war."

Life, in what was then the frontier settlement of
Cooperstown, was not without its interests other than
those of mere business. The village grew and the
settlers in the surrounding country prospered. In
1790 Judge Cooper brought his family from Burlington.
It consisted of fifteen persons, including servants. In
the same year, as appears from a census taken then
the village proper contained eight families with a total
of thirty- three persons and two slaves; seven houses

3 <§ufoe in tlje OTtlberneste 237

and three barns. This "census" is endorsed by the
maker as follows: "I may not be perfectly correct, but
the difference is not material if any." In 1802 the
population had increased to 342 whites and 7 blacks,
and in 1816 to 826 persons. Churches, an "academy, "
and a public library had been started. A newspaper
was published in 1795, and at least one has been pub-
lished in the village continuously since. Cooperstown
at the time of the writing of the Guide in the Wilderness
stood in point of trade and population next to Utica.
The former now has about 2900 inhabitants and the
latter about 45,000.
Jacob Morris, writing in January, 1796, says:

The brilliancy exhibited at Cooperstown last Tuesday —
the Masonic festival — was the admiration and astonishment
of all beholders. Upwards of eighty people sat down to one
table — some very excellent toasts were drank and the great-
est decency and decorum was observed. ... In the
evening we had a splendid ball, sixty couple, thirty in a
set, both sets on the floor at the same time, pleasant manners
and good dancing.

This was not the first ball given at Cooperstown.
There is the record of the trial, in 1791, of a Doctor

P , who was charged with having mixed an emetic

with the beverage drunk at a ball given at the "Red
Lion." He was tried, convicted of the offense, put in
the stocks, and then banished from the village. Ban-

238 3Ugenb£ of a Jlortjjem County

ishment was not an unusual, though probably an
unlawful, form of punishment at the time.

The place seems to have been attractive to foreigners,
seeking a permanent or temporary home in this country,
as many of them found their way to it. For some
years an ex-governor of one of the French islands kept
a shop in the village. Talleyrand visited Judge Cooper,
and wrote verses to one of his daughters, and many of
the prominent federalists of the State stayed for longer
or shorter periods with him. In 1796 he began a large
brick house for his own occupation calling it Otsego
Hall. It took the place of an older one known as the
Mansion. Here open house was kept and a liberal
hospitality dispensed. Traveling was done by short
stages, over poor roads, from the home of one friend or
acquaintance to that of another, and doubtless the
Mansion, and later the Hall, received their share of
such patronage. Traditions still live of the good times
enjoyed, and the receipted bills for the tuns of madeira
consumed have long survived the giver and partakers of
the feasts. That dinners were not unusual is apparent
from the following provision in the lease of Judge
Cooper's house, made in 1798, when he went to Philadel-
phia for the winter but expected to board with the lessee
at times: "When he makes a dinner for his friends, then
the said William shall pay three shillings per man to the
said Samuel and on all occasions find his own liquors."

9 <§ufoe in tfte Mitoerne** 239

The hospitality, if tradition speaks truly, was some-
times enforced with amiable roughness. The story is
still told of how Judge Cooper, while driving a sleigh
full of guests, stopped at the house of a friend, an ex-
officer of the French army, who was living on the shores
of Otsego Lake, and asked him to join the party and
dine at the Hall. He firmly declined the invitation,
but his would-be entertainers were not to be discour-
aged and carried him forcibly to the dinner. Arrived
at the Hall they found, to their delight, that their cap-
tive, suffering from the delays and inconveniences of
frontier housekeeping, was without a shirt. Judge
Cooper, however, supplied him with one, and, as
the involuntary guest was frequently heard to say
afterwards, was so hospitable as to give him a ruffled
one.

The head of a settlement was subject to other de-
mands than those on his wardrobe. One of the French
settlers borrowed of Judge Cooper some fifty dollars.
As time went on the latter noticed that his debtor's
visits to the Hall became less and less frequent until
they finally ceased. Meeting the man one day, he
remonstrated with him, telling him that so small a
matter should not cause him annoyance and urging him
not to allow it to interfere with his visits to the Hall.
The Frenchman, however, felt that the fifty dollars
weighed heavily on his honor, and that he could not

240 Hesente of a Jlortfjern Count?

partake of the Judge's hospitality until the debt was
paid. Not long afterwards Judge Cooper saw his
debtor approaching him with every manifestation of
joy, waving his hat and shouting : * ' Good news, Judge
Cooper, Good news — My mother is dead! My
mother is dead! I pay you the fifty dollars."

Judge Cooper seems to have prided himself on his
physical strength and agility. He offered a lot (prob-
ably 150 acres of land) as a reward to any man on the
settlement who could throw him. The challenge was
accepted, the Judge finally thrown by one of the settlers,
and the lot conveyed to his conqueror.

William Cooper was appointed First Judge of the
Court of Common Pleas of Otsego County in 1791 and
held this office until October, 1800. His appointment,
so the commission reads, was for "such time as he shall
well behave himself therein or until he shall attain the
age of sixty years." His retirement from office was
not due to either limitation. The commission is signed
by George Clinton, recited to be ' ' Governor of our said
State, General and Commander-in-Chief of all the
militia and Admiral of the navy of the same." He was
twice elected to Congress, in 1795 and in 1799, and once
lost his election.

The interest in politics during the earlier years of the
United States far exceeded that of to-day, and entered
largely into the life of all the inhabitants. Nearly

a <@utoe in t&e Wilberne** 241

every elector seems to have been a politician. The
letters of the time are full of politics and party ani-
mosity. Judge Cooper, a Federalist, was a prominent
member of his party and devoted much of his time to
its cause. He was on intimate terms with its leaders,
and in constant correspondence with many of them.

The population in the country was scanty, and as the
franchise was restricted by a property qualification,
the voters were comparatively few; but the enthusi-
asm was unlimited. The polls could be kept open five
days, so as to accommodate all wanting to vote, and as
there was no secret ballot the excitement was constant
and intense. Jacob Morris, writing of an election in
Unadilla (Otsego County) at which 141 votes were cast,
and the federalist majority was five, after dwelling on
the completeness of the victory, says : ' ' Our success was
wholly ascribable to the federalist spirit of the Butter-
nuts; the hardy sons of this new settlement, rushed
over the Otego hills, an irresistible phalanx" — and then
referring to his political opponents, adds :

That since in political dust they are laid

They're all dead and d d and no more can be said.

There are frequent complaints in the letters of fraud
and of influence and prominence of foreigners, es-
pecially the Irish. Fear for the future of the country
and the stability of property is expressed in almost the

16

242 Hegente of a J?ort{jern Count?

terms used to-day. The federalists are "friends of
order" and their opponents "anti-Christians," "ene-
mies of the country," etc. One prominent resident of
Otsego county and of Philadelphia, writes: "We are
busy about electing a senator in the State legislature.

The contest is between B. R. M , a gentleman, and

consequently a federalist, and a dirty stinking anti-
federal Jew tavern-keeper called I. I . But, Judge,

the friends to order here don't understand the business,
they are uniformly beaten, we used to order these things
better at Cooperstown."

Philip Schuyler, writing to Judge Cooper of the
election of 1791, says:

I believe fasting and prayer to be good, but if you had
only fasted and prayed I am sure we should not have had
seven hundred votes from your country — report says that
you was very civil to the young and handsome of the sex,
that you flattered the old and ugly, and even embraced the
toothless and decrepid, in order to obtain votes. When
will you write a treatise on electioneering? Whenever you
do, afford only a few copies to your friends.

Campaigns were not, however, always conducted on
such peaceful and pleasant lines, as appears from the
following affidavits, a number of printed copies of
which are among Judge Cooper's papers, endorsed in
his handwriting, "Oath how I whipped Cochran."
They were apparently used as campaign documents.

3 <@ufte in tfje aJSitoerne** 243

The James Cochran referred to was a political opponent,
and defeated Cooper for Congress at an earlier date.

Jessie Hyde, of the town of Warran, being duly sworn,
saith, that on the sixteenth day of October in the year 1799,
he this deponent, did see James Cochran make an assault
upon William Cooper in the public highway. That the
said William Cooper defended himself, and in the struggle
Mr. Cochran, in a submissive manner, requested of Judge
Cooper to let him go.

JESSIE HYDE.
Sworn this sixteenth day of

October, 1799, before me,

RICHARD EDWARDS, Master in Chancery.

OTSEGO COUNTY, ss.

Personally appeared Stephen Ingalls, one of the con-
stables of the town of Otsego, and being duly sworn, deposeth
and saith, that he was present at the close of a bruising
match between James Cochran, Esq., and William Cooper,
Esq., on or about the sixteenth of October last, when the
said James Cochran confessed to the said William Cooper
these words: "I acknowledge you are too much of a buffer
for me," at which time it was understood, as this deponent
conceives, that Cochran was confessedly beaten.

STEPHEN INGALS.
Sworn before me this sixth

day of November, 1799.

JOSHUA DEWEY, Justice of the Peace.

In the election of 1792 the State canvassers, acting
upon the advice of Aaron Burr, rejected, for alleged

244 Hegenb* of a J^tortfiern Count?

irregularity in the manner of their return, certain votes
and among them those of Otsego County, and by so
doing changed the result of the election, defeated Jay,
and declared Clinton elected Governor. This action
caused great indignation among the federalists and
seems to have been unjustified. As a means of divert-
ing attention from it, a petition, charging Judge Cooper
with having unduly influenced the voters in his county,
was presented to the State legislature. An investiga-
tion was had, and the petition finally dismissed as
frivolous and vexatious. Judging from the personal
letters on the subject written Cooper at the time, the
charges were groundless.

Judge Cooper died at Albany, December 22, 1809,
as the result of a blow on the head, struck from behind,
by an opponent as they were leaving a political meeting.

This Guide in the Wilderness was not published until
after his death, and it gives an excellent idea of the man.
The letters composing it show Judge Cooper to have
been a close observer of nature, a man who saw and
understood the value of the natural phenomena among
which he lived, and a student of character. That he
was of a kindly disposition the letters which exist among
his papers show. He made some bitter enemies, as was
inevitable with a man leading so active a life and taking
so great an interest in politics as he did, but he had
many devoted friends.

& (Suibe in tfje lHttoente$£ 245

William Sampson, to whom the letters composing
The Guide in the Wilderness were written, was a well-
known lawyer. He was born in Londonderry in 1764
and died in New York in 1836. He was the son of a
Presbyterian minister, and an officer of the Irish Vol-
unteers. He was counsel at Dublin for members of
the society of United Irishmen. After the failure of
the revolution in 1798, he fled from Ireland but was
brought back to Dublin and eventually allowed his
freedom upon the condition of his living in Portugal,
where he was afterwards imprisoned at the instance of
the English government, but was finally set at liberty
and came to this country. He wrote a number of
books, among them his own memoirs, of which three
editions were published.

The following extract from a letter of his to Judge
Cooper explains the reason for the publication of the
Guide in Dublin and fixes the date of the letters as prior
to 1807.

SIR: — Since you left us I have been too much occupied
with moving, attendance on the courts, and other matters
to have made much progress respecting our little work. I
have however employed my spare moments toward mak-
ing a fair transcript of your letters. The booksellers here
give little encouragement, or to say better, very great dis-
couragement to any literary object, and unless they have
it for nothing to themselves they seem to make it a point to
keep it down. But there is a ship about to sail shortly for

246 JLtQmte of a J?tortf)ettt Count?

Belfast or Londonderry, in both of which quarters I have
brothers, men of liberal minds and passionate for useful
knowledge. I have no doubt your letters will interest them
highly, and the public no less. And although neither your
object in writing those letters nor mine in publishing them
was to get money, yet I should think that going to the ex-
pense of printing a work so likely to be productive to a
publisher would be useless. I wish to have your consent
before I take any further step, and shall be glad to hear how
your health has been and what there is new in your woods
... I am sir,

Your friend and humble servant,

WILLIAM SAMPSON.
NEW YORK, I2th of May, 1807.

In this republication, the original text has been
strictly followed, and there appear all of the mistakes
in spelling and grammatical errors existing in the pam-
phlet as first published — for some of them the author
probably is responsible, for others the printer.

Albany, March, 1897.

WILLIAM COOPER

WILLIAM COOPER was born in 1755 in Byberry
township, a part of old Philadelphia County, Penn-
sylvania.

His father was James Cooper; the family were all
Quakers; the first of them to come to America was
James Cooper, of Stratford on Avon, where there was a
large family of Coopers living in and about Stratford.
He came to Trenton, N. J., in 1680 and bought a
"plantation" near there; he sold this a few years later
and moved to Byberry Township where he bought an-
other; he owned considerable land in and about Phila-
delphia including a piece on Arch Street, four hundred
and fifty-five feet front, but only fifty-one feet deep.
He died December 4, 1732, leaving a good deal of real
estate, and a will drawn in his own handwriting but
unsigned. He was born in 1 66 1 . It is said that he had
a shop of some kind on the Arch Street property, at the
corner of Second Street ; he is sometimes described as a
merchant.

His son William, who died in 1736, had a plantation

247

248 Hegente of a JBtottljent Count?

of one hundred and sixty acres in Byberry, upon which
apparently he lived, in addition to land in Philadelphia.

William's son, James, was born in Byberry in 1729;
he owned a plantation at Buckingham, Bucks Co.,
but lived in Byberry, where Judge William Cooper was
born December 2, 1755, in his father's residence, near
where the Somerton Post Office stood in 1885.

The wife of the first James, Hester or Esther, was the
progenitrix of the family saints; she seems to have been
a preacher of prominence and as such much admired;
she traveled all over the country addressing meetings
and there is a long account of her in The Friend (vol.
xxviii, p. 51) and of the shortcomings of her husband,
James — and of his repentance. It is an amusing illus-
tration of the religious atmosphere and activity then
prevailing in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

ESTHER COOPER

Of this Friend we know little, except that she was in
good standing amongst the valuable ministers of the day,
and one who was concerned to be found faithful in the ex-
ercise of the gift committed to her. At what time she came
forth in the ministry we know not, but she had a portion of
trial to fit her for the work. Her husband was one who
went into the separation with George Keith, and whose
estrangement from Friends must have been cause of great
concern to her. But he was restored, and perhaps the
testimony which he gave against himself may have sufficient
historical importance to merit a place here.

Jfamtlp jfrotea 249

Dear Friends, — I am constrained to give forth this testi-
many against myself, for caution to others, desiring that
none may be tossed to and fro, as I have been , sometimes
holding this opinion, and sometimes that opinion, and
sometimes netiher.

0 Friends, how have I been hurried from mountain to hill
in self -conceited imagination, and in the exaltation of that
serpentine wisdom in which I strove furiously in the dark
night of apostacy that has been over me, vainly endeavoring
to overturn the way and work of the Lord. In this, ' ' black-
ness of darkness," I find I was a wanderer from the presence
of God, and subject to all the twistings of Satan. But
blessed be the Lord who hath once more extended his rod
of correction in mercy, and hath not left my soul in hell,
but has let me see my dangerous condition. Glory to his
holy name for ever! Now, Friends, I do assure you that
for a time I thought myself safe, and in that time I abused
Friends and the Truth, with all the calumnies and oppro-
brious speeches and actions I could invent, being persuaded
by the devil and his agents, that I did well. In so doing, I
neither spared cost nor pains. But blessed be the Lord
who found me out in the height and full career of these blind
and wicked practices. That very day I read that paper1
so irreverently before a great congregation there met and
gathered to worship the Lord.

To the grief of my heart I remember with what rigour I
introduced it in the window where I stood. When I had so
done, people being gathered in the streets of Burlington into

1 This paper was a challenge from George Keith to the yearly meeting
then sitting at Burlington, to hear "an appeal" which he had printed.
James Cooper, although the door of the meeting-house was open,
climbed up into one of the windows, and read part of it whilst that
ancient and honourable Friend, Thomas Janney was at prayer. This
act he might well call irreverent.

250 Hegenb* of a J^ortftem Count?

many companies disputing, and I as hot as any, having
some respite, I went into George Hutchinson's house, and
to George Keith in a chamber there, where I found him
alone. Now said I, "George, why art thou here, and we
are at war in the streets." He answered, knocking one
hand upon another, "I have done with them, and I hope,
when we die, they and I shall not both go to the same place. "
These words, at that very instant, struck such amazement
upon me, that I trembled, saying within myself, he hopes
well for himself, but bad for them, surely this man wants
charity.

I say in the presence of God, and in the sincerity of my
heart, I am truly sorrowful for my outgoing, and I do con-
demn, and let it be condemned, all and everything that I
have been concerned in, wherein the truth of God hath
suffered or his people. Particularly the late separation
with all the whimseys, and notions thereof, and all the writ-
ing and printing of that kind, and all the scandalizing and
laying open friends and brethren, whether true or false, as
knowing it unchristian; — with all those revolution doc-
trines,1 and non-belief of the perpetuity of the damned in
hell. I desire that the Lord may forgive me; and blessed
be his eternal name. I feel in measure that he hath. He
hath seen my exercises, and given ear to my cry, when no
eye saw me but his alone. Blessed be his name for ever. I
can say he hath once more given me an earnest of his love,
otherwise I had sank under the weight of my burden. O
he hath let me feel his rod which hath driven me to make
this confession. I have not done it of my own will, neither
am I driven (thereto) by others. Glory to his name for
ever, can my soul truly say. Friends, I can say to the
praise of God, and in behalf of the Truth, that I have felt

'George Keith's doctrine of transmigration of souls.

Jfamflp Jlote* 251

the ancient arm of love to the refreshment of my soul, since
I set my face homewards again, at times; but in an especial
manner in this great assembly (wherein) the Lord made me
willing to take shame to myself that he might have the
praise, and truth be cleared. O Friends, take it from one
that speaks his experience, and can say the overshadowing
love of God is wanting amongst those that are gone from
you, notwithstanding their boasting. What shall I say,
this is the truth, and there is not another, and the panting
of my soul is that the Lord may bring out many more, as
he hath me, many of whom I know (departed) through me,
and with me fell into the pit or gulf. God forgive me, for
being so forward an instrument in that wicked work, which
produced such bad effects, and protect me with his holy
protection from henceforth. Friends, great hath been my
exercise, since the Lord drove me home again, all which I
took patiently, knowing my deserts.

Now, Friends, that you will forgive and forget as much
as in you lies, all that I have acted, spoken, or done against
the truth of God, or his people in general, and against any
particular Friends; some of which are gone to their own
home. 0 I desire when I finish my course, my soul may
rest with their's, and I desire I may be received into the
unity of the church. Your distressed brother,

JAMES COOPER JR.
PHILAD., igth of Seventh mo., 1695.

This paper was presented by James Cooper to the Yearly
Meeting held in Philadelphia, and the reception of it was
minuted. He afterwards became a useful member of the
Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia, and one in good repute.

Esther Cooper was much made use of in the discipline of
our religious Society, and we can trace some of her labours
in the ministry. In the Seventh month, 1701, she was set

252 Hegente of a Jlortfjern Count?

at liberty to visit the meetings of Friends in Maryland and
Virginia, and a valuable minister, named Elizabeth Key,
bore her company. In the Third month, 1702, she had the
unity of her friends in a prospect of service about Egg
Harbour, and again she had Elizabeth Key for her com-
panion. She appears to have frequently visited the meet
ings near Philadelphia. We find her with another fellow
labourer in the gospel, Mary Lawson, visiting the meetings
at Plymouth, Byberry, Abington, and Frankford — with
Martha Chalkley, at Germantown, Groynned, and Abing-
ton. We can trace her at these meetings many times,
sometimes, having the company of Hugh Durborough,
sometimes of his wife Elizabeth, sometimes of George
Gray, sometimes of Sarah Goodson, all of whom were
ministers in good esteem. We can follow her in her la-
bours of love until about the middle of the year 1706, after
which our only trace of her is this short minute.

Esther Cooper, wife of James Cooper, departed this life
the 1 3th of the Tenth mo. 1706. She was raised in testi-
mony here.

The first William Cooper married Mary Groome,
whose grandfather, Samuel, was one of the twelve pro-
prietors of East New Jersey in 1681-82; he is described
as "Samuel Groome, of the parish of Stepney, in the
County of Middlesex, Mariner." As early as 1676 he
was cruising off Maryland in command of his own ship,
probably looking for a stray Spaniard, for peace-loving
as Quakers were, they were willing to smite the enemy
when profitable opportunity offered; and perhaps
" Samuel Groome, Mariner," was not then a Quaker.

Jfamtlp ifrote* 253

William Carter, Mayor of Philadelphia in 1711, was
not a Quaker and did not come to America for his soul's
sake, but to escape the penalty, death, I believe, for
killing deer in one of the King's forests. His daughter,
Ann, married William Hibes and their daughter,
Hannah, married the second James Cooper at Christ
Church, Philadelphia, in 1750.

William Cooper, of Cooperstown, married Elizabeth
Fenimore, daughter of Richard Fenimore of Rancocus,
N. J., December 12, 1774. He lived in Burlington,
N. J., until his removal to Cooperstown in 1788. He
moved his family in 1789, and James Fenimore Cooper
was born in Burlington in that year.

The Fenimores came from Finmere originally Fene-
mere or Fennimore, Oxfordshire, England, and are
enrolled in Domesday Book as holding a manor of that
name, which they held until the sixteenth century.

Of the five generations of Cooper men, who have been
especially associated with Cooperstown, not one was
born in that village. Many of these facts are from
an elaborate genealogy prepared by the late W. W.
Cooper of Washington about 1885.

The public activities of, and offices held, by all of these
men can be found in Proud 's History of Pennsylvania
and Mulford's History of New Jersey. Most of them
were active in public life and held important offices
from time to time.

254 Hegenb* of a JBtorttjern Count?

William Cooper was a great pioneer; he began the
settlement at Cooperstown in 1785, with about sixteen
thousand dollars in cash; his inventory on November
1 6, 1797, was as follows:

Dols. Cts.

Total value of lands unsold 165 788.00

In Bonds and Mortgages 162 312.00

328 100.00
One share in the New City Tavern

in Broadway, New York 375-QO

328 475.00

His total land holdings aggregated over three quarters
of a million acres.

When he died in 1809 he was supposed to be worth
about seven hundred thousand dollars. He made,
besides Cooperstown, large settlements at Williams-
town (De Kalb), Coopers Village, Coopers, and other
places. He was an active Federalist and was appointed
First Judge of Otsego County in 1791; he was repre-
sentative in Congress for the Sessions of December 7,
1795-March 3, 1797, and December 2, 1799-March 3,
1801. He died in Albany, December 2, 1809.

It is said that, as a youth, he ran away from home on
account of some disagreement with his father and that
some of the other of the children went with him. He
was a Quaker, but as appears from the family papers
was expelled from that Society. All of the Coopers

Jfamilp Jftote* 255

and Fenimores were Quakers. When he left Burlington
for Cooperstown in 1789 his wife at the last minute sat
down in her father's library chair and refused to come.
The carriage and wagons were loaded, and at the door,
so William picked up the chair and his wife and put
them both in a wagon. The chair is the old Queen
Ann arm chair now at Fynmere.

Judge Cooper's personal appearance is made fairly
well known to us by his portraits : a Gilbert Stuart, a
John Trumbull, and one by an unknown artist. In
addition to these we have his son's description in the
letter from Canajoharie, written about 1833, and pub-
lished in this volume, and the following, quoted from
an address delivered at a meeting of the Oneida His-
torical Society ; he is mentioned as one of the four great
pioneers of New York State ; the other three are Rieter
Evertsen Hulst, Sir William Johnson and Col. Charles
Williamson; of William Cooper in 1785, it says:

"He was then thirty-one years of age, in the full
health and vigor of perfect manhood, nearly six feet in
height, of fine figure, with a rich, deep complexion."

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER was born September 15,
1789. He married Susan Augusta de Lancey, January
I, 1811, and died at Cooperstown, September 14, 1851.

256 ILtztnte of a Jlortfjern Count?

He was educated at Cooperstown and by Rev. Thomas
Ellison, Rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, until he
entered Yale College at thirteen, in the Class of 1806.
He was expelled in his junior year. His father sent
him to sea, as a common sailor before the mast, as a
preparation for entering the Navy. He spent one
year cruising in foreign waters and then was appointed
a midshipman. He resigned from the Navy at about
the time of his marriage. He lived in West Chester
County, New York City, and Cooperstown until he
sailed for Europe in 1826. He spent seven years
abroad, and on his return in 1833, took up his residence
at Cooperstown and lived there until his death in 1851.
In 1826 his name was changed from Cooper to Feni-
more-Cooper, by the Legislature of the State of New
York. He did this in fulfillment of a promise made
his mother years before.

PAUL FENIMORE COOPER

PAUL FENIMORE COOPER, my father, was born in
New York City, February 3, 1824. He graduated from
Hobart College, and for a short time attended the
Harvard Law School. He practiced law in Albany
until his death, April 21, 1895. He married, at Coopers-
town, Mary Fuller Barrows, June 28, 1855, a daughter of
Rev. Eleazer Storrs Barrows and Catherine Chloe Fuller,
one of the daughters of Dr. Thomas Fuller of Cooperstown.

Jfamtlp incite* 257

The usual family genealogist has been active in all
these families, and there are books on the Barrows and
Fuller families and in England one on the Fenimores.

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON

SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON was one of the greatest and
most interesting figures in Colonial history. He was
born in Ireland and lived there until about his twenty-
second year when he came to New York.

His mother was Anne Warren, a sister of Admiral
Sir Peter Warren, who brought him to America. Sir
Peter married Susanna de Lancey ("Sweet Susan de
Lancey "), a sister of Lieut.-Governor James de Lancey,
who was my great-great-grandfather; and lived much of
his life in New York. He owned, in addition to land
near and in New York City, a large tract in the Mohawk
Valley, known as Warrensbush or Warrensborough, and
brought his nephew, William Johnson, to this country
to take charge of it about 1737.

Sir Peter commanded the English fleet at the siege of
Louisburg. He was a very successful naval commander
and accumulated a large fortune in prize money. His
share of the loot of one captured fleet alone amount-
ing to over three hundred thousands pounds. He is
buried in Westminster Abbey.

Sir William Johnson soon became a great landholder
in his own right; his Royal grant on the Mohawk con-

17

258 Eegente of a JHorftern County

taining thousands of acres and his Dreamland tract on
the Susquehanna thirty thousand. He was a Colonel
in the British Army, and commanded troops and fought
at Niagara, Lake George, and in other engagements.

His greatest claim to distinction, however, was his
handling of the Indians of the Six Nations, the most
warlike, and dreaded of all our Indians. He was ap-
pointed Indian Commissioner by the English govern-
ment, and for years kept the Iroquois friendly to the
colony. He was adored by and almost lived with them.
King Hendrick, Red Jacket, and Brant were his in-
timate and devoted friends and constantly at his home.

His first considerable house was Fort Johnson, just
west of Amsterdam and his later residence, Johnson
Hall, at Johnstown ; both are still standing.

He had one son, Sir John Johnson, by Katherine
Weisenburg, known as his first wife; after her death he
took as his housekeeper Mollie Brant, the sister of
Brant, the great Mohawk Chief; by her he had a
large family. He probably never was legally married.
There is a letter in existence written by James Feni-
more Cooper which says that Hendrick Frey, one of
Sir William's friends and executors, told Judge Cooper
that Sir William had told him that he never had been
married. His only white son, Sir John, married Mary
Watts, whose mother was Anne de Lancey, a sister of
Lady Warren.

Jfamtlp JJote* 259

The details of Sir William's life are told in several
biographies, and this note is merely to tell my descend-
ants of their connection with him and Sir John.

Sir William died just before the Revolution broke
out. Sir John was a Tory and left an evil reputation
on account of his attacks on the Mohawk Valley set-
tlers, in which he was associated with Walter Butler
and certain of the Indians of the Six Nations.

"TANGIER" SMITH

"TANGIER SMITH," so called, was Col. William Smith.
He was a Colonel in the British Army at a very early
age, and was Governor of Tangiers. He is said to have
been a great favorite of the King's, which accounted
for his early promotion. He married Martha Tunstall
of Putney, County of Surrey, at Tangiers in 1675. He
came to New York and settled there. He was Lord of
the Manor of St. George, on Long Island; the Manor is
said originally to have been fifty miles wide on the
ocean and that width across Long Island.

Among the old papers in my possession is one, yel-
low with age, on which are set forth many details
of the life of "Tangier" Smith; purporting to be
copied from a book kept by William and some of his
descendants.

One entry reads as follows:

260 Hesento of a Jlortftern Count?

Col. William Smith was born at Newton near Higham
Ferrers, in Northamptonshire, England, February 2nd
1655. He seems to have been in great favor with Charles
2nd, which was continued during the reigns of James 2nd,
William and Mary and Queen Anne, Charles 2nd, in 1675,
appointed him Governor of Tangiers — in 1683 he returned
to England and embarked in trade. He arrived with his
family in New York August 6th 1686 — and is supposed to
have removed to Brookhaven 1689.

He had a large family ; seven daughters and six sons.
One of the latter, Henry, "born in the Royall Citty of
Tangier in Africa, was Joined in holy wedlock to Anna
Shepard of Charleston in the County of Middlesex by
the Revd Mr. Cotton Mather and Col. John Phillips"
in 1704.

May 23, 1692, was, if the record speaks truly, a dis-
agreeable day for "Tangier" Smith:

Mr Smith & my selfe went to ye South, ye nexte day
after wee came home Mr Smith was taken with a pain
beeloe his lefte shoulder Blade, it continued to groe worse
& I had thoughts hee might a sprained or hurt some vaine
by lifting me upon horseback in his armes it continued
and shout to his left brest — I put ottes fryed in vinegar to
his side and he found some ease — then I put wormwood
fried to his side and yt maide his heade ake and maide his
side much worse on Sunday the 29 of May my dere Billy
was lett Blud on ye lefte arme — blead 8 ounces and drinkd
a porringer of muten brought & he was not sicke when ye
blud stoped — I allso put a plastor to his side whare the
pain was & with the blessing of God it was very well.

Jfamilp Jlote* 261

He had a bad time again in September, 1695, when
1 ' He was taken with a collocke and was ready to burst " ;
he recovered and lived until 1705, when he died, only
fifty years old.

One of his daughters, Martha, married Caleb Heath-
cote, who came to New York from England about 1686.
The cause of Caleb's leaving home, and in due time
becoming one of our ancestors, has been handed down
for over two centuries ; he was engaged to a very beauti-
ful girl and took his elder brother, Gilbert, to see her,
Gilbert was afterwards Sir Gilbert Heathcote, one of the
originators and first president of the Bank of England,
she may have foreseen the future ; in any event she and
Gilbert fell in love and married. The heart-broken
Caleb fled to the Colony of New York. The lady was
Hester Raynor. Anne Heathcote, Caleb's daughter,
married James de Lancey, Chief Justice and Governor
of the Colony of New York; James was the son of
Etienne de Lancey, a Huguenot who left France on the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and his wife Anne
Van Courtland, who, in turn, was the daughter of
Stephanus Van Cortlandt and Gertruy Schuyler,
daughter of Philip Schuyler and the charming Mar-
gritta Von Schlechtenhorst. A son of James de Lancey
and Anne Heathcote, John Peter de Lancey, married
Elizabeth Floyd, and their daughter, Susan Augusta de
Lancey, was the wife of James Fenimore Cooper. This

262 Hegenb* of a Jlortfjern Count?

is the story of our New York Colonial ancestry, in
brief; you can find it in great detail in Jones' History
of New York in the Revolution.

The de Lanceys were Tories and all the men, but one,
held commissions in the British army or navy and saw
service against the colonies in the Revolution. This
cost them their American land, all of which was con-
fiscated and sold.

An amusing story is told of John Peter; he was edu-
cated at Harrow and Cambridge, and was a Captain in
the Royal Irish Fusiliers ; he went back to England after
peace was made in 1783. The Colonel of his regiment
was very overbearing and in the habit of insulting the
subalterns. It got to be so bad that his officers agreed
that next time he insulted one of them, they would
draw lots and the one to whom the lot fell would chal-
lenge the Colonel — a capital offense in those days.
When lots were drawn the fatal number fell to John
Peter de Lancey; he promptly challenged the Colonel,
who, instead of fighting him, reported the affair to the
Horse Guards. John Peter knew that the game was
up ; so he put his family on board a boat at Greenwich ;
watched until he saw the Colonel coming out of the
Horse Guards and caned him. His horse was waiting
and he made his escape to Greenwich, got on the boat
and sailed to this country.

The irate King struck his name from the Army List

Jfatnilp Jlotes 263

with his own hand; and John Peter avoided England
for the rest of his life. He is the portly man in white
waistcoat whose portrait hangs in the library. It's a
pretty tale, and anyway the portrait is of a man who
might have done such a thing.

Years ago I was told the story of the wooing of Mar-
gritta, wife of Philip Schuyler; it seems that Philip,
who was big and stout, and Margritta's father, came to
blows on the trail near Rensselaerwyck, in a dispute
over pelts or tobacco or rum; Philip was winning when
Margritta rushed to her father's aid and beat up Philip.
He was so much impressed by her fistic ability and by
her value as an ally, in those days of red men and
danger, that he married her. All this about the year
1650. 1 can't vouch for the story but it was an old man's
tale when I was a boy in Albany, where many people
still spoke the Dutch of the seventeenth century, and
was told me by a well-known local antiquarian.

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